Mamas or Mammes

ON ST. MAMAS OR MAMMES, MARTYR,

AT CÆSAREA IN CAPPADOCIA,

Under Aurelian.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Mamas, M., at Cæsarea in Cappadocia (St.)

BHL Number: 5192, 5193

BY J. P.

§ I. The deeds of this most illustrious martyr are altogether obscure and uncertain.

Those two things which not seldom hold good in the case of holy martyrs — namely that they are most celebrated in cultus The deeds of this most celebrated martyr but obscure in their recorded deeds — both have their place also in St. Mamas: for if you regard the celebrity of his name, he is on that score assuredly by far the most illustrious among the Greeks; but if you inquire into his deeds, scarcely any among the Saints of great name is found more obscure among them. Both will be made clear from what is to be said in the course of this our Commentary. Many things indeed are noised abroad by report concerning our martyr. The Acts published under the name of Metaphrastes in Surius on this day write thus: He was illustrious both in piety and in birth. For his father was Theodotus, his mother Rufina … distinguished in family, as being sprung from patricians, and as preserving their nobility not only in their sons but also in all who were of their kin. The Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeld, on the 2nd of September — on which day our Saint is honored among the Greeks, as we shall say in another place below — gives him the title of a Roman senator. Other Acts likewise make his parents illustrious in nobility. But two holy Fathers gainsay this, namely Gregory Nazianzen and Basil, who record that he was of humble birth, sprung indeed from a rustic or shepherd stock. Let St. Gregory Nazianzen, then, be heard, in his 43rd oration, which is entitled On the New Sunday, toward the end: Of which number is also that laureate of mine (mine, I say, though he is not with me — let envy be gone; I speak to those who know), that famous Mamas, both shepherd and martyr, who formerly milked the hinds that came hastening in rivalry to nourish the holy man with new and unwonted milk. But now he feeds the people of the metropolis, and today renews the springtime for many thousands of men flocking from every side, both by the beauties of his virtue, manifold and worthy of shepherds, and by his triumphant discourses. He fed, that is, Cæsarea in Cappadocia at that time, where his body was, and nourished the piety of the people with the heavenly favors which he poured out upon it. He was therefore truly a shepherd in his life, and after death in an allegorical sense. Nicetas, the commentator upon St. Gregory, of whom more hereafter, expounds the text cited in volume 2 of the works of that holy Father, printed at Paris in the year 1611, columns 1223 and 1224.

[2] lie hidden in the deepest obscurity Nearly the same things, though differing in words, are found in St. Basil, volume 2, homily 23 of the latest edition, printed at Paris in the year 1722, page 185, which is On the holy martyr Mamas, whom he praises to this effect: That martyr borrowed his splendor from no other source; but he himself, by the manner of his life, kindled the torch of good repute. The rest are ennobled by Mamas, not Mamas by others … Let us admire a man not honored by another's adornment, but made illustrious by his own … By the martyr's memory the whole region has been stirred, and the entire city has betaken itself to the festival. You see how virtue is honored, not riches … Wherefore if any one recalls the shepherd, let him not admire riches. For we have come together not to praise a rich man; beware of departing in admiration of the rich man, but rather of poverty joined with piety. A shepherd displays nothing great, nor any choice manner of life. Thus, then, those two holy Fathers; who are more to be believed than Acts that have deserved but slight commendation, as will afterwards be said. Meanwhile it will be useful to remember these two testimonies diligently for what follows, which we here subjoin.

[3] Nor less obscure are the other things which are circulated in the Saint's Acts concerning his parents. are concealed, For these, as is read in Surius, are accused before Alexander, who was then legate of the city of Gangra … Alexander therefore compelled the divine Theodotus … to sacrifice to images: but he would not so much as lend an ear to what was said. And when the legate was ready to punish him, he was hindered by the dignity of his parents. For it was not permitted him to inflict outrage upon the sons of patricians, unless the emperor allowed it. He therefore sends him to Cæsarea in Cappadocia, to the governor Faustus. And he … when he had received Theodotus, at once casts him into prison. But his wife, although she was with child, nevertheless followed her husband, and entered in thither together with him. Both of whom are afterwards said to have died in the same prison. Hence, if credit were to be given to the Acts, it would follow that they gave their lives for the confession of the faith, and so were martyrs. They are indeed inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the XXXI day of August, but without the title of martyrs, in these words: At Cæsarea in Cappadocia, Saints Theodotus, Rufina, and Ammia: of whom the first two were the parents of St. Mamas the martyr, whom Rufina bore in prison and Ammia brought up. The ground of their cultus is assigned in the notes: The Greeks treat of the same, whose Acts, joined together with those of St. Mamas, Metaphrastes recites: they are extant in Surius, vol. 4, on the XVII day of August. Among the Greeks, on the 2nd of September, in the great printed Menæa, his parents are recorded as having been arrested for the faith in Christ and delivered to custody; and a child is said to have been born there, who after their death was taken up and reared by a Christian woman named Ammia, the name of Mamas being given him because he continually called that Ammia mama.

[4] The Slavo-Russian Menology which I cited above and things apocryphal adds a prodigy, from what source I know not: From the time of his birth he was mute for five years; afterwards, speaking, he said in the Roman tongue mama; whence also he was called Mamantus. The Surian Acts relate only this: The infant was already reaching his second year, and with his tender tongue calls Ammia mamma. Now this in the language of the Romans signifies mother. And so the infant's first stammering gave him his proper name, and he was called Mamas by all, and thereafter was known by it. The miracle by which the Saint is said to have uttered his own name is amplified in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis which John a Bosco published, where, in what he calls the right-hand gallery, there is extant a book of an anonymous old priest … on the translations of the relics of St. Mamas into Gaul: for in the preface of that same book, chapter 1, page 227, these things are related: When she (Amia) caused him to be carried to the church, that he might receive the sacrament of baptism, in the presence of many, the priest who had come to regenerate him asked publicly: By what name shall this boy be called? The boy, who did not yet know the use of his tongue, answered: Mamas is my name. And when all were amazed, and the priest asked this same thing again, a second and a third time the boy said with clear voice: Mamas is my name.

[5] are stuffed in. These things, which we have just gathered from various documents, would greatly conduce to the honor of St. Mamas, were they as true as they are specious — not to say deservedly suspect. 1) Because St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen made not so much as a single word's mention of matters so illustrious to the martyr, and so well suited to their eloquence: which, had they received them from any quarter, is it likely that they would have passed over in silence? 2) The Acts in Mombritius, and in the Boscus cited, page 240, and likewise those which we have in manuscript, begin to narrate the history of the life and martyrdom of St. Mamas in a far different manner, and agreeably enough to the mind of SS. Gregory Nazianzen and Basil. Let one only out of many copies be heard, that of Mombritius, vol. 2, folio 69: There was in Cæsarea of Cappadocia a boy of twelve years named Mammes. His parents, just and worshiping God, taught their son from the beginning the law of the Lord. After their death the most blessed boy, keeping his life with great care, walked in the precepts and judgments of the Lord Jesus Christ without complaint: he was loved by the men by whom he was seen, on account of his modesty. He, when in that city he saw the commands of the emperor Aurelian being fulfilled, and the temples

were being made, could not bear it: for, leaving his goods, he withdrew with his flocks alone into a mountain whose woodland was very dense; and he lived there, giving himself to prayers and readings, and was fed only upon the milk of his flock. You see that here nothing is touched upon, even by a single little word, of the things which we have above brought forward from other sources. But as to what concerns the parents of St. Mamas, that subject may be treated on the XXXI day of this month, on which they are found in the Roman Martyrology, as also concerning Mammia, who is said to have adopted our Saint as her son.

[6] Uncertain also are the other things which are recounted of his wonderful fast, Again, very obscure, and deserving of but slight credit, are the things which are written of St. Mamas's fast drawn out to a full forty days in the Surian Acts: An angel … bids … the martyr come to the mountain which is near Cæsarea, and dwell there. When therefore he had been on the mountain, and had remained fasting a full forty days, he becomes here another Moses. Into his hands is delivered the New Testament, which had not indeed then first begun to be, but had already been given to the Fathers. And what was then wanting to Moses is now fulfilled in the martyr. For Moses indeed received only the tables from heaven; but to this man both a voice and a rod came down from on high. And when he had received the rod, and, as the voice signified, had cleft the earth with it, as Moses formerly the sea, he receives the Gospel brought forth from the bowels of the earth. These things are indeed there recounted; but the Acts which are in the edition of Mombritius, and those which we have in manuscript, relate that matter otherwise. Let the Mombritian copy be heard again: When such was his life, a voice was heard saying to him: Mammes, go down to the plain. And straightway he went down into the plain: and he found there a rod laid down, and a Gospel. And when he had read it he said: Lord, to whom dost thou bid me announce thy Gospel? And a voice came to him: Build thyself a house upon the mountain, and I will show thee to whom thou shalt announce it, &c. Many other things are reported, both in the printed and in the manuscript Acts of St. Mamas or Mammes, which, to say it in a word, present a copious heap of things marvelous — I would I could say credible — after so deep a silence concerning deeds of this kind on the part of SS. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, who praised him. But to run through and weigh them is not for this place; it will be so afterwards, when we shall discuss the copies of the Acts and set forth our judgment upon them, being meanwhile about to examine a few particular points concerning our martyr.

[7] What age of life our holy champion attained — his age, that is, whether he died a boy, or grown in years, or an old man — is not clear: for in this the testimonies do not agree. The Martyrdom published by Mombritius, like other copies conformable to it, signifies that he appeared before the governor while he was but a little boy. For in Mombritius the governor is brought in addressing him thus: O vain little boy, I am saddened on account of thy age, seeing thy beauty and thy childhood: for this cause I grieve over thee. In the book of the anonymous priest on the translations of the relics of St. Mamas into Gaul, of which above, there is reported an apparition of the martyr made to Gnalo, where, among other things, this is narrated in chapter 6 concerning Gualo: He went up on his bed … and suddenly a certain shuddering fell upon him, and he became as it were in an ecstasy, half awake, and he saw before him a most beautiful young man in shining raiment, holding in his hands the head which he had. But SS. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, as we saw a little before, call him a man; the Passion, however, which is read in Surius, calls him a boy and a youth; while the Roman Martyrology, on the contrary, will have him to have been an old man, since he drew out a long martyrdom from boyhood even to old age*, as the Saint's announcement there on this day asserts. From these things I deduce this one consequence: that it seems to me by far more probable, on account of the authority of SS. Gregory and Basil, that our athlete reached the age of manhood. For if these holy Fathers had learned, either from writings or from public report, that he had accomplished his martyrdom in boyhood, without doubt they would not have kept silence about it, having found matter suited to their eloquence, so as to celebrate before their hearers, with great emphasis and with merited praises, his heroic constancy in suffering martyrdom, drawn from the unripe and tender age of the champion who suffered, strove, and triumphed.

[8] But by what kind of martyrdom did he finish his course? If we listen to the Acts the kind of martyrdom, which are extant in Surius, after he had been most grievously wounded by an iron trident driven into his bowels, he ended his last day of life. But in Mombritius quite other things are recorded: Gathering stones, they stoned the most blessed martyr … and not even thus did they harm him. And after a few things interposed it is added: When he had said this, the most blessed martyr laid down his spirit. With the Surian Acts, in the consummation of the martyrdom, agree the Menology of the emperor Basil in Ughelli, vol. 6 of Italia sacra, column [ ], the Menology of Sirletus, and the great printed Menæa on the 2nd of September. The two Fathers cited above, to whom add the Roman Martyrology, indicate that the Saint underwent martyrdom, but say nothing of the kind of martyrdom. In the apparition which is narrated to have been shown to Gualo, the martyr himself testifies that he was beheaded, saying: Look, and hold it firmly without doubt, that this very thing is my head, which was cut off from me for the name of Christ. And that apparition seems sufficiently authentic and worthy of credit, according to what is to be said below after the Acts; and therefore, if amid so great a variety in this matter of which we treat anything is to be established, it seems to us to come nearer the truth that St. Mamas was beheaded, so long as that apparition is not convicted of falsehood. Now we must speak of the year and the day on which he is said to have obtained that laurel.

[9] and concerning the year of the same Although the great printed Menæa and the Menology of Sirletus, among the Saint's deeds which they narrate, do not express the name of the emperor, from which the time of the martyrdom might be gathered, yet elsewhere Aurelian is marked by hagiologists with sufficiently common consent, as may be seen in the Menology of the emperor Basil, in Ado, Usuard, Rabanus, Notker, to whom the Roman Martyrology is added. In the Acts ascribed to Metaphrastes also, and published by Surius, and likewise in the Mombritian, the name of the same emperor is woven in; but at the end of those same Acts, where they treat of the martyr's death, it is not indeed expressly stated, although it had been set down in them before, and there we understand it. Ruinart, in his Acts of the earliest martyrs, genuine and select, printed at Paris, page 278, says thus: We refer the death of St. Mamas to about the year 274, along with the common authors, until more certain documents be brought forward by some one to persuade us otherwise. The ancient Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard, Rabanus, and Notker, &c., agree, in which the martyrdom of St. Mamas — or, as they say, of Mammes or Mames — is reported, as we have already noted, to have befallen under the emperor Aurelian, on the XVII day of the month of August. We too support Ruinart, and speaking with many others, have marked the martyr above as suffering under Aurelian. Meanwhile there may be consulted what we have noted on this day concerning Aurelian in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of SS. Paul, Juliana, &c., from number 7 onward.

[10] and the day. But now the day of the martyrdom has also its own difficulty. This befell, according to the Acts in Surius, on the second of the month of September. The Greek calendars favor the same day, in which the yearly cultus of the Saint is there woven. The Mombritian copy differs from these, when it writes thus: The most blessed Mammes suffered in the city of Cæsarea in Cappadocia on the sixteenth day of the Kalends of September. The Alexandrian Chronicle, at the 311th Olympiad, that is, at the year 465 of the common era, says that on the 2nd of September … the memory of St. Mamas was celebrated. But St. Gregory Nazianzen, in the passage praised by us above at number 1, seems to hint that the solemnity of this athlete was celebrated in Cappadocia in the spring season. That, however, nothing certain can thence be concluded for the day of the martyr's death, this is an indication: that solemn days of this kind were kept on various days according to the variety of places, either on account of translations or on account of other like occasions. To us therefore the second day of September appears preferable, on account of the fuller consent of the Greeks, who honor the martyr then; add the Metaphrastic Acts in Surius, of whatever credit, which write that he departed this life then. The Latins indeed, like the Mombritian copy, mark him on this XVII day; but on what foundation is not known to us. There is added to this, that in the cultus of a Greek saint, unless something hinders, we must chiefly stand by the Greek calendars, from which it was derived to the Latin martyrologists. We said above that the 2nd of September appeared to us preferable: because to define it as though certain would be to assert more than can be proved. For the Saint might be proposed to be honored on one day and die on another, as also happens in the case of other Saints among the Latins. That day, therefore, amid so great an obscurity and ignorance of the matters pertaining to the life and death of our martyr, we propose, and wish it to be held such, until a better be taught from some other quarter.

* elsewhere he is called Gualo.

§ II. Whether two Mamases have been confused into one; the copies of the Acts, both Greek and Latin, their authors, their value.

Whether the reasons which we set forth, It may here be asked whether the things which we gathered in the foregoing paragraph concerning St. Mamas belong to a single martyr, or to two of the same name blended into one. The ground of doubt is that the things there set forth by us differ so greatly, and some are so unlike others, that they seem not to be attributed to one and the same Mamas, but to distinct persons, and that what is proper to two has been applied to one. We think it worth while, therefore, to weigh and explain this question so far as it shall lie in our power; and the things to be said below at greater length concerning the Acts will serve this end. In the first place, it is not a sufficient reason for doubling St. Mamas or Mammes the martyr, that persons of the same name are noted on other days. In the Hieronymian transcripts published by Florentinius the following is read on the XVI day of July: At Cæsarea, the birthday of St. Paul … and of St. Mammes: on which announcement the said author observes thus in his notes, page 667: Concerning St. Mamas or Mamas, the illustrious martyr at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, there is extant a homily of St. Basil … Whether he be the same with the St. Mamas or Mammes who on the following day, and again on the XVII day of August, is commemorated both in the writings of the Latins and in ours, I waver. In the Appendix to the Martyrology of Ado published by our Rosweyde, page 209, without the place of the contest, this is found on the same XVI day of July: Likewise elsewhere, of St. Mammas. The same things occur in the transcripts cited, but on the XVII day of the aforesaid

month: And elsewhere, the birthday of St. Mammas. Florentinius in his notes, page 668, hesitating here again, says: Whether St. Mamma be the same with the Cæsarean of Cappadocia, whose memory we made yesterday, I do not decide. That several festivals of so celebrated a martyr could have been kept in several places, and that on various days, is not hard to believe.

[12] Notker on the XVII day of July places the memory of St. Mammes of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, with a long narrative of his deeds, prove that two martyrs of the same name have been blended into one; which on the XVII day of August he repeats more concisely. On this same day it is said thus in the transcripts many times mentioned: The birthday of St. Mammes, monk. At Calcidonia of Cappadocia, the birthday of St. Euphemia. Florentinius in his notes, page 757, advises that his copy is to be restored on the credit of other codices … at the beginning, before the birthday of St. Mammes, the name of Cappadocia, foolishly placed after Chalcedon. But observe in the announcement recited the singular characteristic monk: concerning which the said author, after he had treated of the Acts from Metaphrastes in Surius, observes as follows: Since … nothing is indicated of his monastic life in those more diffuse Acts, and since some of the codices adduced, along with our books, affirm St. Mammes or Mamas to have been a monk, it would have been permissible to suspect another than the boy Mamas, were it not that this man too deserved to be called a monk, because, already grown and an illustrious confessor, dwelling on the mountain of Cæsarea and building a temple there, he tamed the wild beasts called to himself and milked them, and lived upon their milk — the greater part of it, however, being made into cheese and distributed to the poor — thus leading a solitary and anchoritic life, until, being dragged again to Cæsarea by Alexander the governor and tyrant, after wonderful contests he triumphed, crowned.

[13] which, although it be not certainly established, To the question proposed, therefore, concerning one Mamas or two confused into one, we answer first: Since the things reported concerning the deeds of the one or the two are so obscure and uncertain, we must needs confess that the present controversy can by no means be decided by certain and convincing arguments. Not 1) from the Acts assigned above, which are of altogether slight credit, like most others of the Greeks, with whom it is only too customary not so much to set down the deeds of the Saints sincerely as to compose them dramatically. Nor again 2) from the different days on which the Saint is announced. For what stands in the way of one and the same Saint (grant for the moment that the same man is marked down on today also in the calendars adduced before) being commemorated in different places and therefore announced on different days? Nor 3) from the varying formation of the name: for who does not know that the names of the same Saints are very often expressed in different ways? Nor 4), lastly, from the characteristic of monk: for why may not today's martyr be so called, for the reason brought forward by Florentinius above?

[14] we nevertheless suspect Yet nevertheless, although these things do not seem to have weight enough to persuade us with certainty of the confusion here disputed, we do suspect that there were two martyrs, of whom one was a boy, the other a man (such as SS. Gregory Nazianzen and Basil called their Mamas above, at numbers 1 and 2); one cast into the sea, the other pierced with a trident; one of Gangra, the other of Cæsarea; one, finally, suffering at Ægæ, the other at Cæsarea. For since the Acts are of two different kinds, yet in such wise that they agree in many things, is not sufficient reason afforded for suspecting that the Acts of two martyrs of the same name have been so mingled together that the deeds proper to two have been attributed to one? The Metaphrastic Acts report that St. Mamas was born at Gangra in Paphlagonia, the son of St. Theodosius and St. Rufina; and that, when these had died in prison, the infant Mamas was afterwards brought up by Amia. And in the 15th year of his age he professes the faith before Democritus, prefect of Cappadocia; he is sent by him to the emperor Aurelian, then dwelling at Ægæ; there he suffers various torments and works miracles; at last, by Aurelian's order, he is cast into the sea; but, drawn out by an angel, he is sent into Cappadocia, where for some time he leads a solitary life upon a mountain, &c.

[15] that this has been done. But the Mombritian Acts have none of these things concerning their St. Mammes, but record that he was brought up by his parents at Cæsarea in Cappadocia in the law of the Lord; that after their death, being twelve years old, he turned aside from the commands of Aurelian and withdrew into a mountain, where he was fed upon the milk of his flock. We set down the text at number 5. In which there shines out the shepherd character, which the two holy Fathers attributed to their Mamas, whose text we brought forward at the said numbers 1 and 2. As to the rest, both what is different and what is common in the things narrated of either martyr, the Metaphrastic and Mombritian Acts may be seen, as also the things which we have just said by anticipation in this Commentary, and shall afterwards say. And these indeed are the things which, from a conjecture in some degree probable, move in us the suspicion that the Acts of two martyrs have been mingled together: concerning which many things yet remain to be noted.

[16] We have two Greek copies of them; the one is noted as transcribed from a Medicean manuscript of the King of France; The Greek copies of the Acts the other bears the name of the Vatican library, from codex 797, page 16. This one begins thus: Κατὰ τοὺς καιροὺς ἐκείνους ἦν τις ἀνὴρ ἐν τῇ Παφλαγόνων χώρᾳ ὀνόματι Θεόδοτος· εἶχεν δὲ καὶ γυναῖκα ὀνόματι Ροὐφίναν· ᾤκουν δὲ εὐσεβῶς καὶ φιλοθέως ἐν τοῖς προαστείοις τῆς πόλεως Γάγγρας. Which I render thus into Latin: In that time there was a certain man in the region of the Paphlagonians named Theodotus, whose wife was named Rufina. And they lived piously and religiously in the suburbs of the city of Gangra. But the other begins its narrative thus: Μάμας ὁ μέγας οὗτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ μάρτυς καὶ περιβόητος πατρίδα μὲν ἔσχε Παφλαγονίαν, ἐπιφανὴς δὲ ἦν αὐτήν τε τὴν εὐσέβειαν καὶ τὸ γένος. Πατὴρ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῷ Θεόδοτος, Ῥουφίνα δὲ μήτηρ. That is: Mamas, that great and famous martyr of Christ, had Paphlagonia for his country; and he was illustrious both in piety itself and in birth. For his father was Theodotus, and his mother Rufina.

[17] Allatius, in his Diatriba on the writings of the Simeons, page 127, recites the beginning of that copy which I brought forward in the second place, and our judgment concerning them. among the Lives which truly and properly have Metaphrastes for their author. But the other, the Vatican transcript, which I have cursorily compared with the Medicean, of whatever author it be, has far too many things exactly like the Metaphrastic for it to be believed that both were drawn from a different fountain — one, would that it were, more purified and clear, and more worthy of the glory of this most celebrated martyr. For what shall we say? These Acts of the martyr are full of torments and marvels; two ancient Greek Fathers write of him, as we indicated in §1, but they so write that they seem tacitly, as it were, to indicate that none of these things had come to their knowledge, since they left so sparingly — and, so to speak, in a manner nothing at all — recorded to memory concerning his deeds. What credit, then, do writers of so many centuries later deserve in these matters, who, while by a studied apparatus they strive to exhibit the Saint as wonderful, render themselves little credible or sincere? Deservedly therefore did Ruinart give no place to those Acts in his collection, saying at page 276: Since we seek monuments concerning the holy martyrs more ancient than those which are reported out of their own invention by Simeon Metaphrastes and other authors of the middle age, it often happens that concerning most celebrated martyrs there sometimes survive but few things which may be brought forward by us. This may be said of Mamas the martyr, &c.

[18] From what has been said, gather what is to be determined concerning the Acts The Acts in Surius: likewise others whose Latin translator which are extant under the name of Metaphrastes in Surius, and which we too, after the example of other writers, likewise call Metaphrastic; and what likewise concerning those published by John a Bosco, a Celestine of Gaul, under the name of Reynald bishop of Langres, and dedicated to Cardinal Baronius, in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis published at Lyons in the year 1605, page 210 of what he calls the right-hand gallery. But that that bishop did not receive those Acts from a Greek fountain, but another man did, we learn from the annotation of our Peter Francis Chifflet, which he wrote with his own hand after the end of another transcript of the same Acts which is in our hands, headed with this title: The Passion of St. Mamas the martyr, by Godfrey bishop of Langres, from a manuscript codex of the Charterhouse of Dijon. At the foot of these, therefore, the praised Father writes this to our purpose: This very Latin version of the Acts of Mamas the martyr, the preface excepted, is contained in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis of John a Bosco; but it is falsely ascribed to Raynald bishop of Langres, since it is Godfrey's, bishop of the same city nearly sixty years after Raynald: as the Preface makes clear, which we published from a codex of the Charterhouse of Dijon. From which codex also we have restored the Acts themselves, corrupted in more than one place. And it is gathered from the same Preface that no translation of the Acts of St. Mamas was ever elaborated by Raynald, since Godfrey mentions only three published before his own, namely the Antiochene, the Jerusalem, and the Calabrian. But the little work which follows in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis on the translations of the relics of St. Mamas into Gaul (of which little work there will be place to speak below) is by an anonymous author of Langres, who wrote about the year of Christ 1214, when William was bishop-elect of Langres, the tenth after Raynald, as is noted at the beginning of the third chapter. But concerning the learning and deeds of Godfrey, who was a contemporary of Bernard of Clairvaux, see the Gallia Christiana among the bishops of Langres.

[19] is not Rainald, but Godfrey, The author of the little book on the translations of the relics of St. Mamas into Gaul, chapter 3: "This same man (Reinald, bishop of Langres) translated the Life of the blessed martyr from Greek into Latin: which afterwards also he is said to have set forth in heroic verse." Here the credit of John a Bosco is suspect to me, and I could wish that the codex of the Celestines of Ternes were consulted, from which he professes to have drawn these things. But even granting that that author of four hundred years ago so thought and so wrote, it is certainly disproved by the preface of Godfrey, from whom a Latin version of these Acts by his predecessor Raynald, had there been any, could by no means have lain hidden. Concerning Blessed Godfrey bishop of Langres, see Chrysostom Henriquez in his Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, book 2, distinction 10, chapter 16, and distinction 41, chapter 4. The same in the Cistercian Menology on the VIII of November. Angelus Manrique, vol. 2 of the Cistercian Annals, at the years 1145, 1147, 1153, 1161, 1155. The same, in volumes 1 and 2, says that a house was founded by St. Bruno in Calabria in 1097; that this house stood under five Priors of the Carthusian Order for sixty years, until the year 1157, when it passed to the Cistercians, the Carthusians of that house having themselves embraced the Cistercian rule. And when it had continued in that state for 357 years, at length in the year 1514 by

Pope Leo X it was restored to the Carthusians. It is likely that the Acts of St. Mamas were translated by Godfrey in the year of Christ 1147, in which he followed King Louis into the East. And at that time those brethren who inhabited St. Bruno's Calabrian hermitage were still of the Carthusian institute. Concerning this very expedition Odo of Deuil seems to have written to Abbot Suger.

[20] bishop of Langres. In the new edition of the Gallia Christiana, vol. 4, column 575, Godfrey or Gotefrid is placed as the fifty-ninth bishop of the church of Langres, but without the title of Blessed; and his deeds are then described, interwoven with chronological reckonings, whither I send the reader. Concerning Rainard (so the name is there expressed) the said edition may be consulted from column 560. To our purpose is what is there said of him: He was a man … by no means unskilled not only in Latin but also in Greek letters. At column 562 this is noted: He described in Latin, in prose and in heroic verse, the Passion of the martyr (Mammes) from Greek commentaries. But that this is not his work but Godfrey's is proved by what was said a little before out of Chifflet's note. For in the Preface which he named, and which, published or copied out by his own hand from the manuscript codex of the Charterhouse of Dijon, I have before me, Godfrey himself, after mentioning the earlier translations of the Passion of St. Mamas from Greek into Latin, testifies this in the plainest terms: "Which I, Godfrey," he says, "though an unworthy bishop of Langres, did so many times over for this reason, because I read there certain things discordant, and far more than I had heard in the Latin copies of Gaul; and I wished that from different regions different interpreters, and of praiseworthy repute, should give me more certain assurance of the truth." What could be clearer?

[21] Among our manuscript papers concerning St. Mamas, there is extant a copy written on parchment with this title: Other copies are recounted: Here begins the Passion of the most holy martyr of Christ Mamas of Cæsarea in Cappadocia: who was translated by the venerable lord Patriarch of Aquileia in the year of the Lord … in the county of Arezzo, in the place where it is called Saint Mama. The name of D. Ughelli is prefixed to it in Papebroch's hand. It begins: When at first it had been sent out by Aurelian the persecutor throughout the whole world, that if there were any who despised the worship of the gods they should be dealt with by various kinds of torments, there was in Cæsarea of Cappadocia a boy of twelve years of age named Mamas. His parents, &c. See what we brought forward in §1, number 5, from the Passion printed in Mombritius. Similar things are in our Fulda manuscript, which is noted as collated with a most ancient Amandine manuscript, and also with a manuscript of St. Maximin at Trier. At the foot of the named transcript Henschen subjoins this concerning that Passion: The same is contained in a parchment manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, in quarto, with the phrasing varying here and there, and it thus concludes: "And having said this he laid down his spirit. Now St. Mammes suffered under the emperor Aurelian and the governor Alexander in the city of Cappadocia on the XVI Kalends of September." From which it is understood that those copies must be referred to the same origin from which the Mombritian came forth, especially if you compare together not only their beginnings but also what is narrated toward their end. To the same origin we refer also the Acts composed in heroic verse by Walafrid Strabo or Strabus, who flourished in the ninth century, and printed in volume 6 of the Antiquæ Lectiones in Canisius, from page 548 of the earlier edition, and in the latest edition in volume 2, part 2, page 186. The abridged Acts which are contained in the Catalogue of the Saints* of Peter de Natalibus, book 7, chapter 72, we trace back to the same origin of which we were just speaking.

[22] From these things which have thus far been observed concerning the various copies of the Acts, but both these and the others are of no, or of small, value. it follows that two different kinds of them exist, namely the Metaphrastic, which are in the edition of Surius, and, in the Mombritian, those of an anonymous author — both alike, that is, of no, or at any rate of very slight, merit and authority, whether because they were fabricated long after the Saint's martyrdom, or because they were corrupted in the very original source, if any such then survived; both of such a condition that you know not where to set a firm foot. And although they disagree with one another in many things, yet in many things also they agree, if you regard the substance of the matter. They present so many and so wonderful events that they must deservedly be reckoned among those in which there is more of studied fabrication than of truth offered. But since it will little hinder or profit which copy we give to the press, it has seemed good to exhibit below that one which Godfrey, bishop of Langres, translated from Greek into Latin, and concerning which we have already noted very many things from Chifflet's observations, especially since from the translator's Prologue we learn certain things which were unknown to us from any other source.

perhaps qui*.

§ III. The most celebrated cultus of St. Mamas, both among the Greeks and among the Latins; his invocation among both.

Cultus from the Greek calendars, St. Basil, in the homily on our holy martyr which I cited above at number 2, indicates plainly enough at page 189 that his feast day was celebrated at the beginning of the year, and indeed on the very first day of it, that is, as it appears, on the Kalends of September, on which the Indiction began. But He who, he says, has brought back this our festival, and both gave an end to the vows of the past year and bestowed a beginning upon the time that follows (for the same day both closes for us the circle that is past, and again becomes the beginning of that which follows) — He therefore who has gathered us together, &c. But in the Greek calendars the yearly memory of St. Mamas is marked on the following, that is the second, day of the said month. For then it is found in the Typicon which is called that of St. Sabas; in the Menology of the emperor Basil in Ughelli, vol. 6 of Italia sacra, column [ ] of the old edition, and in the new, vol. 10, column 246; in the Menology of Sirletus; and in the great printed Menæa, which honor him with these verses:

Ἀκμαῖος ὦν Τριάδος εἰς πίστιν Μάμας, Ἀκμαῖος τριαίνης καρτερεῖ τετρωμένος. Δευτερίῃ χολαδες Μάμαντος χύντο τριαίνῃ.

Ripe as he was in faith toward the Trinity, Mamas, Ripe, holds fast, pierced through by the trident. On the second day the cruel fork pours out the bowels of Mamas.

Allusion is made to the youthful age of the martyr, untimely for death, and also to the trident by which he is said to have been transfixed.

[24] and from other The Saint's feast day was preceded by a vigil, and that, as will presently be seen, a solemn enough one: for in the Life of St. Daniel the Stylite, which is contained in Surius on the XI day of December, page 225, §27, this is read: Already for some while the circuit of the year had its beginning, and the month was at hand which the Romans call September, in which the pious celebrate the feast of the great martyr Mamas. In the evening, therefore, when the feast is prepared by the pious, and a vigil is kept the whole night through, the prophecy of the great Daniel receives its end, &c. Moreover the church of St. Mamas, besides his principal feast, was much frequented at Cæsarea on the Sunday which fell within the Octave of Easter: for Nicetas, in his Commentaries on the orations of St. Gregory Nazianzen, in volume 2 of the works of that holy Father, which came to light in 1611 from the Paris press, at page 1224, expounding the 43rd oration — a fragment of which we set down at the beginning of this our preliminary Commentary, and which is entitled On the New Sunday — records thus: In this temple, therefore (for at about one stadium from the city of Cæsarea, as he had premised a little before, a temple was built to our martyr) the feast of the dedication was conveniently celebrated with a concourse of the whole city. And in the argument which is prefixed to the commentary on the praised oration, at page 1202, these things had gone before: Moreover this day is called the New Sunday, either because the dedication-feast of our resurrection is kept on it, or also because it bears the figure of that eighth day in which all things shall be made new. And this oration Gregory wrote indeed in the city of Nazianzus, but delivered it in the temple of the holy martyr Mamas near the city. Which both then, and to this very day, on the Sunday next after Easter, is celebrated with a wonderful concourse of the inhabitants. More concerning this Sunday may be seen in Allatius, in his Dissertation on the Sundays and Weeks of the Greeks, which is found after the addenda to the same author's work On the perpetual agreement of the Western and Eastern Church, column 1457. Now Nicetas, surnamed Serron, deacon and master of the great church of Constantinople, afterwards archbishop of Heraclea, flourished in the year 1077, as the heterodox Cave writes in his Literary History of Ecclesiastical Writers; concerning which Nicetas more will be said hereafter.

[25] Our martyr seems to have been honored on the same New Sunday at Nazianzus also, documents. and that in a church of his name. For in the 43rd oration, which St. Gregory delivered on that Sunday, he both speaks of St. Mamas and at the same time says that this martyr fed (with spiritual favors, of course) the metropolis (understand Cæsarea), indicating sufficiently that he was not delivering his oration in that metropolis. And indeed this our observation concerning the honor of the Saint among the people of Nazianzus on the often-mentioned Sunday, and concerning his church, is conformable to the words of the argument prefixed to the Commentary of Nicetas in the place just cited, especially in this, that the martyr's temple near the city of Nazianzus, both then and to this very day, as was there said, on the Sunday next after Easter, is celebrated with a wonderful concourse of the inhabitants. But what we have here touched upon in passing concerning the Saint's temples on occasion of his cultus in different places and on different days, will afterwards be illustrated at greater length, when we shall first have treated of his anniversary memory in the Latin Martyrologies on this XVII day of August.

[26] That the cultus of this our athlete was indeed most celebrated in the Latin Church He is inscribed in the Latin Martyrologies on the 17th of August. is abundantly established from her chief sacred calendars. Of the Hieronymian transcripts published by Florentinius we have already treated in §2. The old or little Roman Martyrology has thus: At Cæsarea, of Mammes the martyr. Ado: At Cæsarea in Cappadocia, the birthday of St. Mammes the martyr, who suffered in the reign of Aurelian, under the governor Alexander. Usuard: At Cæsarea in Cappadocia; the rest agrees with Ado. Wandelbert sings of him thus:

On the sixteenth shines forth blessed Mammes the martyr.

That is, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of September, which is the XVII of August. To these add Rabanus and Notker. The Roman Martyrology announces him in these words: At Cæsarea in Cappadocia, the birthday of St. Mamas the martyr, who from boyhood even to old age drew out a long martyrdom, and at last, in the reign of Aurelian, under the governor Alexander, happily consummated it: whom the holy Fathers Basil and Gregory Nazianzen celebrated with the highest praises.

[27] What of this, that the memory of this holy champion was so venerable among the Latins The public veneration of the Saint that Walafrid Strabo, or Strabus, composed a not inelegant hymn on the birthday of St. Mammes, which is extant in Canisius, volume six of the Antiquæ Lectiones, and sings of him thus:

Let us, as suppliants, sing the praise Of the blessed martyr, to the glory Of the Holy Trinity, which gives The crown to those who bear witness.

The world's adversities he bore, Its prosperities he trod beneath his feet.

Mammes repaid the Thunderer What here He suffered for the guilty.

In virtue, life, and character, Most winning in his speech, In the grace of charity Abiding ever richest.

Spurning wealth and the chances Of the world, he pressed on to things above; Free of things perishable he went forth, Seeking nothing from the lowest.

Gentle, taming what was untamed, And uttering mysteries to them, He lived among the beasts — A citizen in whom the angels rejoice.

Aided by the arms of the Spirit He overcame the furies of princes, Crushing the head of the cruel dragon By his holy endeavors.

The favor of great heralding Is owed to this martyr, For whom to live was Christ, And to be dissolved the greatest gain.

Hope happy and unbroken in his mind; Greater than these, charity Had possessed him within and without.

Let every company of suppliants Exult with serene joy, Asking with lowly hearts The intercessions of this father.

Thee, therefore, O martyr Mammes, We beseech: favor those who ask, Protect by holy prayer Those whom thou instructest by thy contest.

Bestow thy bountiful care, Take away evil, being appeasable, Confer the consolations of good, Preparing the rewards of life.

To the Trinity be glory, Power, and honor through the ages, Which may ever aid us by the Blessed intercessions of the martyrs. Amen.

[29] regions of the West Let us pass over into Italy. The Milanese Missal, printed in the year 1522, at folio 202 verso, sets down certain things for the celebration of a Mass of the holy martyrs Mammes and Agapitus, which may be read there. In our volume II of May, on the X day, we treated of Bl. Mirus, hermit at Sorico on Lake Como in Insubria; in whose preliminary Commentary, at page 604, among the verses in which he is celebrated for his patronage in time of drought for rain, these lines are sung concerning our Saint:

… ye who to your milk-giving Mammes Often give gifts, to whom, being called upon, he assents; That, as to your mothers, if perchance the breasts run dry, Mammes is a giver of milk, so also to thirsting fields Æmilius is a giver of rain.

In the said region, therefore, he has his celebrity also among the country folk. And thus, as is there observed, he is likely wont to be invoked by rustic women in childbed for the obtaining of milk, because, his mother being a captive with her husband for the faith, he was reared without the use of a mother's milk: so that what he himself lacked for God's sake, he may confer upon others.

[30] is spread abroad. But what shall we say of Gaul? Although the city of Langres has the chief part in this most religious cultus toward the martyr, on account of his sacred pledges translated thither, of which afterwards there will be discourse, yet elsewhere in that kingdom public veneration is likewise paid to him, as is gathered from the History of St. Mammes, by a certain canon and archdeacon of the church of Langres, printed in French at Paris in the year 1650; from which we take these things. In book 1, from page 141, he praises that city for its piety toward the Saint, asserting that he sees several parishes in it which honor him with a peculiar honor, and above all that which is called St. Severinus's, where he adds that there is a most ancient and celebrated confraternity under the name of St. Mammes, together with a bone of his relics. He says the matter is proved by the mere inspection of the chapel, whose windows, painted in the ancient manner, represent the history of the martyr. Then he makes mention of manuscript books of the divine Office and of registers, which give evidence of an antiquity of many centuries.

[31] There are added spiritual graces granted by the Sovereign Pontiffs, being propagated. namely plenary indulgences, as they are called, every year on the Saint's feast, and an altar privileged for the dead on every Monday and Friday of the year. He indicates also that the Office is there celebrated on his feast day with great solemnity and concourse of the people; that a Mass is sung every Monday; and that on the XIX day of the month of December very solemn praises are held. Thus he. In book 2, page 154, he indicates that very many chapels and ancient confraternities exist elsewhere, consecrated to the memory of the great martyr. In the same book 2, page 155, he testifies that in the collegiate church of Our Lady, surnamed the Great, at Poitiers, his feast and Office are performed with a very solemn rite on the XXVI day of April; on which day perhaps that sacred pledge was obtained of which we shall discourse below in §5. Besides these things which we have excerpted from that author, it is useful to remember that miracles have also been wrought through the martyr's head, which is in Gaul at Langres, as may be seen in the History of the Translations, reprinted below after the Saint's Passion; which things, to be there narrated, may here be taken as inserted. Of these too the praised archdeacon treats in book 2, chapter 6; who in book 1, chapter 18, page 139, had premised that Michael Boudet, bishop of Langres, on the XII day of August in the year 1515, renewed both for the clergy and for the people the fast which, as he will have it, had been promised by their forefathers at the first translation of his relics, indulgences of forty days being also granted. I said as he will have it, because the history of the first translation is very unsteady. See what is to be said after the Passion, in the preliminary observations to the translations, number 4. Of the aforesaid vow Gualtherotius also makes mention, who is elsewhere cited by us, at pages 425 and 426; but the deed is there indicated as done on the XXII of August in the year 1516.

[32] But far more is supplied to us by the beneficence toward the afflicted of St. Mamas, buried in the East among the people of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, Great in the East shone his beneficence toward the wretched. which was so frequent and so remarkable that, on account of the most excellent graces heaped upon wretched mortals, he deserved from the most ancient times to be addressed by the sweet name of father, as St. Basil testifies in the homily cited above, page 186. Let the sons, he says, who have been taught piety by him, glory in him. And presently: Not even the kinsmen of the rich run out to the tombs of their forefathers; but all approach the place of piety. Him … they call father. Nor indeed did he bear an empty and unmeaning name: for at page 185 the same holy Doctor had premised this: I would have you remember the martyr, as many of you as have enjoyed him in dreams. Let all remember who, being placed in this spot, have had him as their helper in prayer: to whom, while they labored, he was at hand as soon as he was called by name; whom he brought back from wandering abroad; whom he raised up from sickness; to whom he restored children already departed from life; to whom he prolonged the appointed term of life. When all these have been gathered, compose your panegyric out of the common contribution. Share among yourselves; let each impart to the ignorant what he knows, and receive from the instructed what he does not know. And when you shall thus have fed one another out of a mutual contribution, pardon our weakness. Thus St. Basil. But now let us bring forward other monuments, which happened in the same fourth century of Christ in which that holy Father flourished, and by which the brightness of the name and the propagation of the public veneration of St. Mamas wonderfully shone forth.

§ IV. The churches, the body, among the people of Cæsarea in Cappadocia.

In the building near Cæsarea About the middle of the fourth century of Christ there befell a thing altogether wonderful and very apt to spread the celebrity of our most holy champion. Julian, afterwards the Apostate, and his brother Gallus, had been brought up in Cappadocia near enough to Cæsarea; and since at that time they had a very small share, or none at all, in the affairs of public government, they busied themselves with adorning the tombs of the martyrs. On which occasion befell that deed which brought great fame to the name of St. Mamas. Let Sozomen therefore be heard, who in book 5, chapter 2, of the Ecclesiastical History published by Valesius, from page 593, relates the matter to this effect: They were ordered to live in Cappadocia at Macellum. This is a public estate, situated at Mount Argæus, not far from the city of Cæsarea, which has also a magnificent palace. There both were brought up and trained in royal fashion. There they were imbued with the disciplines and exercises suited to their age … In their manners also and their deeds they made a show of piety: since they held both the priests and the other good men … in high esteem, frequently went to the churches, and venerated the tombs of the martyrs with fitting honor. At that time, therefore, it is said that they, being eager to surround the tomb of Mamas the martyr with a most ample basilica, divided the work between them.

[34] of the Saint's church, a marvelous thing came to pass. And while each strove to surpass the other in magnificence and adornment, a thing befell wonderful and altogether incredible, were it not that many still survive in our own age who received the matter itself from those who had seen it. For that part of the work indeed which had fallen to Gallus rose up and went forward according to his mind's intention. But of Julian's works, some fell down; some were thrust up out of the foundations; others would not from the beginning so much as cling to the ground, just as if they were driven back downward by some contrary force resisting. And to all indeed that matter seemed like a portent. Many judged from the outcome what it portended. But some took conjecture from it that he was by no means of sincere mind toward religion; but that through fear of the prince, who at that time was a Christian, he feigned piety. The deed is confirmed from St. Gregory Nazianzen, who in his 3rd oration against Julian, page 60 and following, after what he had reported concerning that prodigy, subjoins this: But if any one thinks less credit should be given me, I will produce as witnesses those very men who were present at the spectacle (for we read that the Saint himself was at that time at Athens); for I have many who have both handed down this miracle to us and will hand it down to posterity. For the rest, the church in which that miracle befell was that same one in which St. Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, delivered his oration on St. Mamas. Nicetas, in his Commentary on the 43rd oration of St. Gregory Nazianzen, says: At about one stadium from the city (of Cæsarea) a temple was built to the martyr, which that same Ammia who had reared him is said to have built with singular magnificence in that place whither, after that final and martyr-making lance-thrust, holding in his bowels already bursting forth, he was scarcely at last able to come from the theater by the force of his burning desire, and to breathe out his soul. But according to the Metaphrastic Acts, to which nevertheless Nicetas elsewhere sufficiently accommodates himself, Mammia had died before Mamas, who became indeed her successor and heir of her goods, as may be seen in Surius in those Acts, chapter 6. I suspect, therefore, that these things were brought down to Nicetas's times by false report, as happens, and that it is the same church in which Julian and Gallus bestowed their labor, as has just been narrated. There was a temple also near Nazianzus. See what was said at number 25.

[35] Codinus, in his Origins of Constantinople, page 57, records another shrine sacred to our martyr: A temple at Constantinople Leo Macelas (this is the emperor of that name, the first) built the temple of St. Mammas, when the city (I understand Constantinople) had burned six whole months in continuous conflagration. Of that sacred shrine Du Cange treats at large in book 4 of his Constantinopolis Christiana, page 185. The praised Codinus, at page 60, records: The sister of the emperor Maurice founded a temple of St. Mamas. For she, when Maurice and his children had been slain by the tyrant Phocas, gathered their bodies and there

laid them. But that church is likely not different from the one which Nicephorus, book 18, chapter 41, pages 863 and 864, following Zonaras (published by Du Cange, vol. 2, book 14, page 79), says was founded by a eunuch named Pharasmanes. It is reported, says Zonaras, that the son also (of the emperor Maurice), while he was going to Chosroes, was intercepted and brought to Phocas and slain; and likewise the empress Constantina with her three daughters, who were buried in the shrine of the divine Mamas near the walls, founded by Pharasmanes the eunuch, chamberlain of Justinian. Concerning the founder, the site, &c., of that shrine, the praised Du Cange may be consulted in the place cited a little before, of which we shall note certain things from other sources, as also of the monastery built under the name of St. Mamas at Constantinople. After Du Cange, Banduri in his Imperium Orientale, vol. 2, page 719, treats this subject.

[36] There, therefore, commenting on the third part of the anonymous author On the Antiquities of Constantinople, and the monastery, concerning which whose Greek text he had reported in vol. 1, page 54, and which in Latin runs thus, The monastery of St. Mamas which is called Xylocercus was built by the sister of Maurice, &c., he observes this: But what our anonymous author here says, and after him Codinus and the other writers on the origins of Constantinople, that this monastery of St. Mamas was built by the sister of the emperor Maurice — and then what he writes below at number 126, that Leo the Great built St. Mamas's and the palaces which are seen there — these things can easily be reconciled with each other, if it be said that the church of St. Mamas, together with the palaces which are seen there, was founded by the emperor Leo the Great; with whom the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle seems to agree in the 12th year of the same Leo, which writer indeed narrates that the emperor Leo, while a fire was raging in the city, betook himself to St. Mamas's and there built a harbor and a portico … "Terrified, therefore, the emperor Leo betook himself toward the strait to St. Mamas's, and made there a harbor and a portico, which place indeed is called the New Portico." But that these things pertain to the same St. Mamas is plain from what follows: for our Anonymous writes that the monastery of St. Mamas was called τὰ Νέα, and Codinus says that the wife and daughters of Maurice were shut up ἐν τῇ Νέᾳ καλουμένῃ μονῇ; which appellation of the place I judge to be derived ἀπὸ τοῦ νέου ἐμβόλου (from the new portico). And this as regards the church of St. Mamas. But concerning the monastery he subjoins this:

[37] certain things are observed. Nothing hinders it being said that it was afterwards built by the sister of Maurice, although in subsequent time the monastery of St. Mamas is called by Cantacuzene, book 4, chapter 16, not one of nuns but of men — who writes that Philotheus bishop of Heraclea wished to withdraw into the monastery of St. Mamas (nay rather, Cantacuzene expressly indicates that he himself wished to do this under that bishop) where also he describes the site of that same monastery as very convenient for the monastic life and, for a place within the city, exceedingly solitary … And it often happens that monasteries which were formerly of nuns afterwards become of men, and conversely. Or perhaps it must be said that there were two monasteries in that place, the one of nuns, the other of men … For the rest, as to what Zonaras says at page 79, that the temple of St. Mamas was built by Pharasmanes the eunuch, chamberlain of the emperor Justinian, this may be understood as meaning that the same temple was renewed or enlarged by him; since we have often elsewhere observed that later writers use ἔκτισε for ἀνέκτισε. Hence, therefore, it follows that it seems likely that one and the same temple of St. Mamas is designated, as I hinted above, although on account of two different names of founders it appears to be twofold and distinct. Nor indeed do we sufficiently see why this same may not be said of the monastery of the same Saint, which the Anonymous mentions in his book on the translations of the relics of St. Mamas into Gaul, saying: The legate sent a certain priest and a certain clerk of his with Gnalo to the monastery which had been newly built at the cost of Isaac, emperor of Constantinople, in honor of blessed Mamas: whose abbot and monks &c. Of which matter there will be treatment below. Of a St. Mamas's in the district of Pera, πέραν ἐν τῷ Σίγματι, Du Cange makes mention at page 186, from the Menæa on the XII of July. What we said on that day in vol. III of the same month, page 303, may be seen. Suidas in his Lexicon, letter M, treats also of a place in St. Mamas's, by which I understand his church.

[38] Concerning the temples To these things which have been premised concerning the sacred shrines distinguished by the name of Mamas, and which pertain to the East, there must be subjoined certain notices of those which he is said to have had in the West. Baronius, in his notes to the Roman Martyrology on this XVII day of August, says: The memory of this martyr was once celebrated at Rome: in his basilica St. Gregory the Pope delivered his thirty-fifth homily on the Gospel on his birthday. But Fronto in his Kalendar observes, at page 147, on occasion of St. Menna, who is there marked: This is he in whose church the 35th homily of Gregory the Great is said to have been delivered: for so have three manuscripts which I have seen; not St. Mamma's, as the printed books have. And indeed in the Paris edition of the Works of St. Gregory of the year 1705, vol. 1, column [ ], the name of Menna is prefixed to the said homily. What therefore used to be circulated concerning that church was ill founded. A parish church under the name of St. Mamolus the martyr (whoever he may have been) is set down in Masini's Bologna Surveyed on the XVII day of August; concerning which church he adds that record of it exists from the year 1294. But by far the most celebrated and most ancient among the Western churches is that which is at Langres in Gaul. For in the latest edition of the Gallia Christiana, vol. 4, column 565, it is said thus: The cathedral church of Langres, formerly consecrated to God under the name of St. John the Evangelist, has now for many centuries past borne the name of St. Mamas or Mammes. But on what ground? On no other assuredly than that it received a part of his sacred remains. And it certainly boasts that it has no small part, namely the head, an arm, and a large bone of the leg and of the neck.

[39] And it is rightly there asserted that the name of Mammes was not imposed upon the principal temple from the relics brought by Rainald, in the West. much less by Gualo of which there will be place to treat below, because already more than three centuries before it bore that name, as may there be seen from the instruments of the church of Langres, which are contained entire at the end of the praised volume; and fragments of these are inserted in the place cited above as they are here given by us: Thus in the year 885 Charles the Fat restored the abbey of St. John to Geilo "for the love of God and of St. Mammes, in whose honor this same church is held to be most famously dedicated," from the ninth charter, column 133. Thus in the diploma by which Rothar II, king of Austrasia, grants the estate of Umbiliacum to Isaac bishop of Langres in the year 859, he testifies that he does this "out of reverence for the church of blessed Mammes," from charter VII, column 131. Thus the precept of Louis the Pious of the year 814 is written for Betto, bishop of the city of Langres, "where is the church of St. Mammes the excellent martyr, in the first year of the reign," that is, of Christ 814 or 815; which precept is produced at column 129. Since these things are so, it follows that at least in the eighth century that church obtained the title and the relics of St. Mammes. At least then, I say: because whether long before that this Saint obtained any name among the people of Langres cannot certainly be determined, although some conjectures for that matter are not wanting, which shall be set forth below on occasion of the relics, of which we shall now begin to treat professedly, so to speak.

[40] That the body of St. Mamas was preserved among the people of Cæsarea in Cappadocia for several centuries after his death, The body of St. Mamas namely down to the time of Nicetas, is proved from his Commentary on the 43rd oration of St. Gregory Nazianzen, in vol. 2 of the works of that holy Father, column [ ], where he says: For the body of the divine Mamas is placed at Cæsarea. But which Nicetas was that? Was it Nicetas David or the Paphlagonian? If it were he, it would have remained there at least until the end of the ninth century: for this Nicetas was living in the time of St. Ignatius of Constantinople. Combefis, in the little work which he entitled The Chosen Triumphs of the Illustrious Martyrs of Christ, and which was published at Paris in the year 1660, after the Panegyric of Nicetas the Paphlagonian on the holy martyrs Eustathius, Agapius, &c., says at pages 83 and 84: The Nicetas whom I bring forward is the Paphlagonian, contemporary with Ignatius of Constantinople and most devoted to him, and the author of his Life published by Rader, &c. It is contained also in Labbe, vol. 8 of the Councils, from column [ ]. In the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, prefixed to our first volume of the month of August, the death of that holy patriarch, column 112, is attached to the year of Christ 877. And these things indeed concerning the body of St. Mamas being at Cæsarea in the ninth century would be true, if Nicetas the commentator on the orations of St. Gregory Nazianzen had been Nicetas David or the Paphlagonian, as Tillemont judged him to be in volume 4 of his Ecclesiastical Monuments*, page 360; but we have not found, among the works of that Nicetas in the bibliographers whom we have consulted, a Commentary on the said orations ascribed to him. But whether it was that Nicetas, or another of the same name, seems to require further inquiry.

[41] at Cæsarea in Cappadocia Leo Allatius, in his Diatriba on the Pselli and their writings, page 16, says of Nicetas David the Paphlagonian: Very many Vatican codices make this Nicetas the same with Nicetas Serron; but ineptly: for it is sufficiently established that the one is distinguished from the other not only by surname, but also by age, office, and writings. By age indeed, because the Paphlagonian is referred to the ninth century, as we have seen; but Serron to the eleventh. By office, because the former — if Leo Allatius rightly argues, or sets forth a conjecture, at the end of vol. 1 of his Græcia orthodoxa, among other things with which he addresses the reader — was bishop of Dadybra in Paphlagonia under the metropolitan of Gangra; while the latter was archbishop of Heraclea. By writings, because among other things by which we read in bibliographers of sufficiently keen scent in that matter that those two authors are distinguished, there is set the Commentary on the orations of Nazianzen, which is attributed not to Nicetas the Paphlagonian but to Serron or Serronius. Oudin, in his Commentary on the ancient writers of the Church, vol. 2, column 714, reports that there are extant in the Escorial library of the Catholic King, once and again, "The orations of St. Gregory the Theologian with the scholia of Nicetas Serronius" … In the Bavarian manuscript 97 it is entitled "The Explanations and Commentaries of Nicetas metropolitan of Heraclea on Gregory the Theologian."

[42] it still rested in the eleventh century. Then, after various manuscript copies of the same Commentary have been enumerated, there is assigned at Constantinople, in the possession of Jacobus Marmoreta the prince, "The explanation of Nicetas metropolitan of Heraclea on Gregory Nazianzen the Theologian, doubts

and solutions," on cotton paper. In the library of the monastery which is on the island of Patmos in the Ægean Sea, "The Exposition of Nicetas of Serræ on the sermons of Gregory delivered in the Church." Let it suffice to have taken these things from the many which the said bibliographer collected. Since therefore the things we have brought forward are not to be rejected as apocryphal without sufficient reason, it remains 1) that the author of the praised Commentary was not Nicetas David or the Paphlagonian, but Nicetas Serronius, distinguished from that namesake of his by age, office, and writings; 2) that the body of St. Mamas in the eleventh century still rested at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, as is clear from the words of Nicetas alleged above.

§ V. Whether the body of our St. Mamas was at Jerusalem in the sixth century; whether it was carried to Milan; whether to Cyprus; the relics at Lucca, at Ellwangen, at Langres, at Lorvão, &c.

St. Radegund in the 6th century received in Gaul In the second book of the Life of St. Radegund, queen and afterwards nun, which is in our work on the XIII day of August, chapter 3, number 21 in our new division of chapters, but in the old division chapter XIV, these things are reported of the said Saint: She sent the venerable man Reoval, a priest, who was then a layman and still survives in the body, to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, asking for a pledge of blessed Mammes. Which the man of God receiving most kindly, appointed rogations for the people, seeking the will of God. On the third day, Mass having been celebrated, he went with all the people to the sepulcher of the blessed martyr, and with a loud voice and full faith protested after this manner, saying: I ask thee, confessor and martyr of Christ, &c. The prayer being ended … he came to the holy sepulcher … he touched the limbs … he touched the several fingers on the right hand; and when he came to the little finger, it detached itself at the gentle touch of his own hand, that it might satisfy the desire of the blessed queen … Which finger the apostolic man sent to Blessed Radegund with worthy honor: from Jerusalem even to Poitiers the praise of God has ever resounded in his honor.

[44] From these things it is clear that the body of that holy martyr, the relics of St. Mammes; whether of today's, or at least a great part of that body, was preserved at Jerusalem in the sixth century, in which that most holy queen flourished. Of that holy martyr Mammes, let us say again. But whether of ours, or of another? Here are arguments on both sides. That it is another's may be said 1) because the body of our martyr was placed at Cæsarea in the eleventh century, as we reported from number 40 out of Nicetas Serronius. 2) Even though not seldom a great part of a body is taken for the whole body, yet this does not seem to be said in this case, so long as no document worthy of credit is brought forward by which it is established that a part of this sort was translated from the city of Cæsarea to that of Jerusalem. But that the body of our Mamas, or a notable part of it, was at Jerusalem may in some measure be conjectured from these considerations. 1) Because St. Mammes, whose finger St. Radegund obtained, must have been very celebrated: for in the place cited these things are recorded: There came to her at last concerning the lord Mammes the martyr, that his holy limbs rested at Jerusalem. Hearing this, greedy and thirsting she drank, like a dropsical man, who, the more he draws from the fountain, the more his added thirst grows; but she, being more soaked with the dew of God, glows the hotter … With what burning spirit, thinkest thou, with what faithful devotion, awaiting the reward of so great a pledge, did she give herself over to abstinence! And when the blessed queen rejoiced with all alacrity that she had received this heavenly gift, she fitted herself for a whole week with all her congregation to psalmody, vigils, and fasts, blessing the Lord that she had merited to receive such a gift.

[45] Such a gift, therefore — sought by the Saint with so great eagerness, or of another? received with so great joy — seems to be understood of today's St. Mamas or Mammes, by far the most celebrated. Certainly no other of such celebrity has thus far occurred to me. 2) Nicetas can be reconciled with this fact, if it be said that a great part of the body remained among the people of Cæsarea, yet in such wise that many centuries before a great part or notable portion of the same body had been translated to the people of Jerusalem. But that we have no documents at hand concerning the time and manner of this translation does not thereby establish that it is false: since that argument is merely negative, as they call it. These things being considered on both sides, I would not dare charge with rashness one who should incline to that opinion, that a part of our most celebrated martyr was among the people of Jerusalem as well as among those of Cæsarea; nay rather, we do not thus far see why it may not be permitted us to suspect that same thing. If we err, let the learned reader correct us as we err, if more light has shone upon any one.

[46] Bosca, in the Milanese Martyrology on the XVII day of August, announces St. Mamas the martyr of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, Whether the body of today's Saint is among the Milanese? and adds this: But his body was translated to Milan, and, kept in the basilica of the Protomartyr, is honored with pious cultus. And in the notes he observes this: Moreover, that the divine Mammes lies at Milan in the basilica of St. Stephen, the authors are Morigia in the Sanctuarium, and in his History, book 2, chapter 8; Villa, On the seven stational basilicas; John Francis of the Basilica of Peter, On the churches of Milan: and most recently Joseph Valvassori, chief Penitentiary in the metropolitan church, published the Life of St. Mamas in print, and that in detail, and in it treats of the tomb of St. Mammes. But I do not dare at once to side with Bosca, who will have it that the body of today's most celebrated martyr is preserved among the Milanese, nor with the others whom he cited; but I desire that the learned men of Milan should supply more ancient documents by which it may be established, first, when, by whom, from what place, and on what occasion that body was translated to Milan; secondly, that they give a probable reason by which it may be shown that this same body is that of our martyr of today and not of another. Certainly in Morigia's Sanctuary of the city and diocese of Milan (whom Bosca cited in the first place), at page 13, where he treats of the bodies of the Saints resting in the church of St. Stephen the Greater, I do indeed find noted the body of St. Mames; likewise in his Milanese History, in the place cited, in the catalogue of bodies which he names and which he says are held in great veneration at Milan, I read the name of Mames; but this is very confused and equivocal. The other writers named by Bosca I leave to others to consult. Observe meanwhile that the feast of this St. Mamas or Mammes, whoever he be, is celebrated in the church of Milan on the XVIII day of August, as may be seen in Bosca in his notes on the XVII and XVIII days of the same month.

[47] St. Mames, who is said to have been carried in a wondrous manner into Cyprus, In Echard's Writers of the Preachers, vol. 2, page 300, there is noted F. Stephen of Lusignan, who composed in French a General History of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Cyprus, Armenia, and the neighboring places, &c., from the universal deluge down to the year 1572, published at Paris in the year 1579 and afterwards reprinted there. Chapter 14 of this historian, a manuscript fragment of which I have before me, records this, which we render into Latin to this effect: Saint Mames or Mamolus, as the Bolognese Italians call him, suffered martyrdom in Asia Minor; then he was laid in a marble tomb and cast into the sea. Which coffer or tomb, the divine goodness so ordering, floating upon the waters, was borne even to the island of Cyprus, and there remained, distant from the land toward the west about a mile. The Saint therefore appeared by night to a certain honest man of Cyprus, who was of the village called Morphou, and bade him betake himself with his children and oxen to the shore and bring that chest to land. And when he believed it neither the first nor the second time, at length on the third occasion he gave credit to the matter and performed whatever the Saint had commanded him. And so with his children and his beasts he walked dry-shod upon the waves, no otherwise than if they had set their step upon dry land. But when he had carried that chest as far as Morphou, without delay it became immovable, and stood in that very place in which it exists to this present day, nor could it ever thence be transferred to another place. And immediately a most sweet and precious liquor was seen to come forth from his tomb, such as is seen at the tomb of St. Nicholas, St. Andrew, and others. And that liquor works wonders both against the tempest of the sea and against all kinds of diseases. But if any one place it in his chamber, or carry it about him, and a sin of the flesh be committed, straightway it is dispersed and vanishes, nor is it known what becomes of it, separating itself from those persons and from the place in which they are, or in which that act was committed. His feast is celebrated on the second day of the month of September, on which day and in which place a very famous fair is held.

[48] Above in this Commentary, §2, we disputed concerning one St. Mamas or two confused into one; we do not sufficiently know. but where and when this Cypriot suffered, and to whom he belongs, we cannot hammer out from those vague terms in Asia Minor. But since the 2nd day of September, on which Lusignan asserted that he is honored among the Cypriots, is the same on which our martyr is honored among the Greeks, as was said above, it would not be strange if the Cypriots had persuaded themselves that the celebrated Mamas of Cæsarea had been carried to their island. But however that matter may stand, we judge that the body of today's Mamas or Mammes was not carried thither, on account of what we have premised above concerning his body among the people of Cæsarea and of Jerusalem. Secondly, we admit without difficulty that some Mammes, a martyr, was honored in Cyprus with public cultus; yet in such wise that for that wondrous arrival of his there, which is narrated by Lusignan without documents and without witnesses, we desire more ancient testimonies.

[49] In the Hieronymian transcripts published by Florentinius there is marked on the XVII day of July: Let the same be said of the head at Lucca. Elsewhere the birthday of St. Mammas: writing upon which announcement the same Florentinius says in his notes on that same XVII day of July: Lately I saw the head of St. (rather, both here and below write of the holy man) Mamas enclosed in a silver case in the city of Lucca among the sacred virgins of St. Justina, preserved entire, with a most ancient inscription upon parchment, in which, beyond the name of St. Mamas, nothing else could be read on account of its age. The flesh is still seen upon the dried bones: the hairs and the curls of the beard, still red, cling to the skin. That house of virgins is most ancient, and concerning its antiquity and its imperial and royal indults we have said much in the Life of St. Silaus, published at the press of Lucca. I shall readily admit that in that place a head is preserved marked with the name of St. Mamas, and I shall give full credit, as I ought, to an eyewitness who asserts it. But who will explain to me who

that martyr was; likewise whence and when his head came to those nuns. For indeed nothing of this kind can be elicited from the text of Florentinius cited, nor can it be known whether the name of the inscription, though ancient, be the true and genuine name of that sacred pledge, or an adopted and supposititious one. The possession of the head of St. Mammes among the people of Langres is assuredly proved by better instruments, as will afterwards be made clear in another place.

[50] Whether any sacred pledge of St. Mammes was ever translated into Germany Concerning the relics of Ellwangen, is an altogether uncertain matter, because it rests upon mere conjectures. In the latest edition of the Gallia Christiana, vol. 4, column 565 and following, these things are brought forward: I read, says the author, in the Life of St. Anno, prelate of Cologne, in Surius on the IV of December, book 1, chapter 48 (rather 38), that the founder of the cell of St. Vitus, or the monastery of Ellwangen in Swabia, duke of the Alemanni and Burgundians, returning from Dijon, carried away with him the bodies of St. Benignus, of the Triplet Brothers, and of St. Mamertus bishop of that city (that is, of Langres), which he consigned to his own church. There is no bishop of Langres named Mammertus to be found. Why then should we not say that along with the relics of the Triplets — born in Cappadocia, as seems most probable, and crowned with martyrdom — there was at the same time brought something of the body of Bl. Mammes, which by synecdoche was called the body; and that in course of time Mammes the martyr was by the unskilled changed into Mamertus the bishop? Why should we not also admit that a translation of the leg-bone was first made? For although the circumstances of it seem to smell of a fable, it does not thence follow that the substance of it is not to be admitted. For it has been found by frequent experience that very many facts, in themselves most true, have been obscured by fables of this kind, which indeed need a criterion, but are not on that account to be wholly denied. Those Triplet martyrs are Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus, of whom we treated in our work on the XVII day of January, from page 73; where on the following page there is discourse concerning their relics translated to Ellwangen, and the passage is adduced from which a little before, in the Gallia Christiana, the conjecture just brought forward was taken: which seems to me somewhat far-fetched. But concerning the time of the translation to Ellwangen there may be seen what was said in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of those Triplets, §1 number 3, and §2 number 9.

[51] of Langres, By far the most celebrated of all are the sacred pledges which in Gaul are honored among the people of Langres with the highest veneration. Their solemn and yearly cultus Saussay inscribes in his Gallican Martyrology on the X day of October in these words: At Langres, on this very day, the reception of the arm of St. Mamas the martyr, which was brought from Constantinople by Raynard bishop of Langres, while he was returning from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. From which pledge of the holy martyr, and from the other relics already before translated hither, and from that most sacred head of his (which, having been found in his monastery by the Latins when Constantinople was taken by them, Gualo of Domnipetra, bishop of Damascus, of Langres by origin — Peter of Capua, cardinal and apostolic legate, granting it to his prayers, in the time of Robert prelate of Langres — brought to Langres as a religious gift and offered to the mother church), the cathedral church itself, which formerly had been consecrated in honor of St. John the Evangelist, received the name of this glorious martyr (nay rather, it had received that name from at least the 8th century, as you may see above, §4, number 39), whose happy arrival it commemorates and celebrates on this day with great solemnity, and follows up with an Octave also, for the greater veneration. From these things it is clear with what excellent piety and remarkable religion the people of Langres attend this their treasure: which, as also its history, will be examined below after the Saint's Passion, which we present.

[52] and of Lorvão. What Friar Bernard de Brito reports in his Portuguese work entitled The First Part of the Cistercian Chronicle, book 6, chapter 29, folio 447, and from him Cardoso in the Commentary of the Hagiologium Lusitanum on the XXIX day of May, concerning the great antiquity of the monastery of Lorvão, which is of the Benedictine Order in Portugal — namely that it was founded in the time of St. Benedict; that the relics of Saints Mames and Pelagius were brought thither, and that for that cause they were taken as patrons — let it suffice to have touched on here very lightly, both because it is not known who that Mames is, and whence he came thither, and because so great an antiquity of that monastery is unsteady. For Mabillon, in vol. 1 of the Annals of the Order of St. Benedict, at the year of Christ 534, number 31, after he had named among other monasteries that of Lorvão, and also St. Peter of Arlanza, and had affirmed that he was persuaded concerning this last that it was not founded before the tenth century, presently subjoins this: Nor are the arguments concerning the origin of the others which I have just mentioned much more certain, resting as they do upon the lying authority of the pseudo-Maximus and others of that stamp. Cardoso, in the place cited, records that those relics have always wrought many miracles, especially at that time when the Saracens were ruling in Spain and Portugal. This sacred deposit likewise, so far as it pertains to St. Mamas, is, if we believe the same Cardoso, that of today's martyr of Cappadocia. Nor are there more things concerning which it is necessary in this my Commentary to forewarn the reader. It remains, therefore, that I present the Acts of our holy athlete, such as they are.

In the French it is Mame ou Mamol.*

THE PASSION

By Godfrey, bishop of Langres,

From a manuscript codex of the Charterhouse of Dijon.

Mamas, M., at Cæsarea in Cappadocia (St.)

BHL Number: 5198

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE.

The Passion of blessed Mamas the martyr was translated from Greek into Latin, first at Antioch by a religious man of that same city, Why the author made a new version of the Passion after so many others. archdeacon of the Greeks and Syrians. Secondly at Jerusalem, by the Subprior of the Holy Sepulcher, who was afterwards made bishop of St. George. Thirdly on this side of the sea, in a certain monastery of religious brethren which of old that distinguished man, Master Bruno ^a, built in Calabria. Which I, Godfrey ^b, though an unworthy bishop of Langres, did so many times over for this reason, because I read there certain things discordant, and far more than I had heard in the Latin copies of Gaul; and I wished that from different regions different interpreters, and of praiseworthy repute, should give me more certain assurance of the truth. For the rest, since that same most blessed Mamas received the crown of martyrdom on the fourth of the Nones of September ^c, why another day and not this is held celebrated among the Latins I know not; unless perhaps, as they were ignorant of many other things ^d concerning him, so they were ignorant, among the rest, of the day of his passion.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint, his parents having died in prison, is adopted by another matron; his constancy in the faith is assailed in vain by blandishments and by torments.

The Saint's father dies in prison Therefore Saint Mamas, the great martyr (for by this surname he is specially called by the Syrians and the Greeks: whether because in a small body he sustained a great contest of martyrdom, or because he is generally held among them to be of great name ^a), having Paphlagonia for his country, was indeed illustrious in the nobility of his birth, but more illustrious in the piety of his faith. His father was called Theodotus ^b, and his mother Rufina, both faithful and lofty in the nobility of their birth, since, being sprung of patricians, they adorned the nobility of all their lineage by their manners and by the uprightness of their life. These, therefore, being kindled with the love of God, and being by no means able to hide their desire, boldly practiced in public the things which belonged to piety, and, converting by exhortation as many as they could to the faith of Christ, drew them out of the pit of impiety. Whence they were accused before Alexander, who then presided over the city of Gangra ^c. For he had received a command from the emperor to exalt and enlarge with all zeal the worship of the gods; and whatever Christians he should find, to subdue them with hard torments; and those whom he could not overturn from the faith of Christ by torments, to punish with a most cruel death. He, ordering Theodotus to stand before his tribunal, sought to compel him to sacrifice to idols. To whom Theodotus would not even lend an ear. But he, though he tried to torture Theodotus, being hindered by the dignity of his parents (for it was not lawful for any one, save by the emperor's order, to do injury to the sons of patricians), desisted indeed from torments, but sent him to Cæsarea in Cappadocia ^d to Faustus the duke. Who himself was as much more vehement in cruelty as he was more fervent in impiety. He, receiving the divine Theodotus, presently ordered him to be thrust into prison.

[3] [as also his mother, after she had brought him forth into the light there; at the prayers of both] But the wife of Theodotus, though heavy with the burden of her womb, nevertheless followed her husband without hesitation and entered the prison with him. When they had been shut up, Theodotus, considering the weakness of his flesh and not ignorant of the tyrant's cruelty, chose rather to die with his wife than, by not being able to resist heavier torments, to do anything unworthy of his nobility against the will of God. Whence, lifting his heart on high together with his hands, he prayed thus: O Lord God of hosts, Father of Thy beloved Son, I bless Thee and glorify Thee, because for Thy name I have been condemned to be shut up in prison. Yet nevertheless I beseech Thee, Lord, who knowest all things, and among all things my frailty: receive my soul in these bonds, lest the enemy rejoice prevailing against me. Thus he prayed; and He who fashions the hearts of men one by one, and understands their thoughts, accepting the will for the deeds, straightway brought his prayer to effect. For presently that holy soul, going forth from the body — the Lord providing for him such a passage — passing over to heaven, left the body in the filth of the prison.

[4] God granting them an end of living. Rufina meanwhile, not enduring the straits of the prison, by reason of the multitude of her miseries brought forth her son untimely and before the time which nature had appointed. For she was grieving pitiably at the death of her beloved husband, and was still more pitiably tormented with care for the little infant; and no less did the intolerable horror of the prison and the cruelty of the duke shake her heart with great trembling and fear concerning perseverance, which alone deserves the reward. Yet, overcome by none of these things, having commended her little infant to God and shown to the dead body such care as she could, weeping unceasingly that she was left by her husband, yet unwilling to be separated even from the dead, she said to the Lord with tears and groans: Thou, O God, who didst form man, and didst fashion woman from his side, may it please Thee, Lord, that I too, snatched from the corruptible things of this world, may pass over with my husband to Thy tabernacles, which alone abide without end.* Thus Rufina; and straightway what she prayed for she obtained, God bestowing it. At length, her prayer being completed, she sent forth that blessed soul, happy

herself also going the way to God, the little infant being left alone in the prison between the clods of both his parents.

[5] Meanwhile a divine vision appeared, in the form of a certain young man, to a woman named Amya, Their offspring is wondrously adopted by a certain widow of birth noble enough and endowed with riches, and no less abounding in the things which pertain to God; commanding her and saying: Go, and ask of Faustus the duke the bodies of the Saints ^e who have fallen asleep in prison; and taking the little infant whom thou shalt find wailing in the midst of them, adopt him to thyself as a son, and bear the greatest care for him as for one born of thine own womb. For she was a widow and had no offspring of her own. Amya, therefore, understanding that the vision had come to her from God, straightway approaches the duke, and easily obtained what she asked, the divine grace working with both — with the duke, that he should grant it, and with Amya, that she should fulfil without delay what had been commanded her. Wherefore she hastily enters the prison; and taking thence the bodies of the Saints and the little infant, she buried the bodies indeed splendidly and with great honor in her own garden; but the little infant, adopting him to herself as a son, she so nourished, so instructed, so embraced, as though he were her own whom she had borne; and she was more careful about him than any mother over the son of her own womb. For the more the boy grew, the more her love for him increased; since she congratulated herself that she should have him as the fruit of all her labors and the best support of her old age.

[6] And so the boy had now reached his second year, and is brought up, and becomes the heir of her goods. and with his tender tongue he began, stammering, to call Amya mama, which in Latin signifies mother: whence also he received Mamas as his proper name ^f, and thereafter was called by this name and known by all. And so, when he had completed his fifth year, and had already been entrusted by Amya to masters of letters, so great an eagerness for learning, so great a capacity of memory, and above all so great a keenness of wit appeared in him, that in a short time he surpassed all his coevals in erudition. For his whole soul was busied assiduously either about reading or about the discourses of the learned. Aurelian, therefore, having attained the summit of the Roman empire, had commanded all to sacrifice to demons, not only men and women, but boys especially; since, on account of the nature of that most tender age, he supposed that they would more easily deny the faith of Christ by his error, and be more quickly led over to his impiety. And in truth other boys obeyed the will of the emperor. But whoever were fellow-disciples of Mamas, imitating the sound understanding of the boy and formed by his words and examples, would not so much as lend a hearing to the emperor's command. They were taught daily, in short, by the boy's desirable prudence, that Jesus Christ is true God, who created all things out of nothing, and governs the created by His rule, and at the end of the world will render pains and rewards to all according to desert; and that to Him alone a rational sacrifice ought to be offered within and without. But that those who are honored by the impious and are called gods are empty images, full of foulness and of absurdity.

[7] While these things, therefore, were thus, Mamas, completing the fifteenth year of his age, In the fifteenth year of his age he is set before the tribunal of Democritus; after the death of the good matron (for this was Amya's surname), over whom he was worn with no small grief, is left constituted by Amya heir of her whole substance. Meanwhile a certain Democritus, a man vehemently breathing the worship of idols and kindled toward it with burning zeal, having obtained the office of the aforesaid Faustus, when he had gone up to Cæsarea and had heard concerning blessed Mamas that not only did he himself not worship the gods, but also called back his coevals and fellow-disciples from their worship by dissuading them, being most cruelly angered against the boy, orders him to stand before his tribunal. And first indeed he asks whether he is a Christian. Then, whether this is the one who would neither sacrifice to the gods nor permit his companions to obey the emperor. But Mamas, undismayed and in nothing at all disturbed, using a constancy more prudent than that age is wont to have, said: I, O duke, know full well your craft, who are wrapped in so dense a fog of deception that you cannot so much as look toward the light of truth. For ye have forsaken the living and true God, and sacrifice to deaf and lifeless idols. But far be it from me that, deceived by your frauds, I should depart from my Christ even for a moment, or that, terrified by your threats, I should cease from converting to Him as many as I shall be able.

[8] who, astonished at his constancy, sends him down to Aurelian; but in vain. Democritus was afraid at the boy's constancy; and when he despaired of being able to draw him from the rule of the right faith by blandishments, he attacks him with threats, and ordered that he be led to the temple of Serapis and compelled to sacrifice to the idol. Mamas, conceiving nothing womanish or ignoble from the terror of the threats, said: It is not lawful to torture thee, or to assail thee with threats, since it is established that thou wert nourished by so great and illustrious a mother, and art endowed with such most ample wealth and so large an inheritance, setting Amya's name before him. Which things Democritus hearing, and having diligently inquired of the bystanders concerning the aforesaid matron and the boy Mamas, whether they were so, sent Mamas bound in chains to Aurelian, who was staying at Ægæ ^g, signifying to the emperor by letters what concerned him. He, having read the letters, at once orders the boy to be presented to his sight. And seeking in many ways to entrap him — now indeed by promising fair and delightful gifts and offering very many honors, now by threatening hard and terrible stripes and setting forth torments — he said: If, O good Mamas, thou wilt sacrifice to the great Serapis, thou shalt be first with us in the palace, thou shalt enjoy imperial delights, and shalt be so far glorified that the good shall admire and praise thee, and the wicked shall be jealous of thee and envy thee. But if thou wilt not acquiesce in these dutiful counsels, I shall order thee, afflicted with many torments, torn by the claws of men and the teeth of beasts, to be consumed by flames.*

[9] After noble answers But the boy, neither enticed by blandishments nor overcome by terrors, but rather the more kindled with the ardor of faith, answered with great confidence: Never, O emperor, may it befall me to be so far out of my senses as to think these images, deaf and dumb and lacking every sense, which are worshiped by you, worthy of any reason or honor. Nay rather, the grossness and exceeding dullness of your understanding is vehemently to be reproved, who permit such things to be worshiped or in any way honored. Cease therefore either to promise me such joyful things or to threaten such terrible ones. If I shall give assent to the benefits which thou promisest, I lose everlasting joys; if thou shalt inflict the torments which thou threatenest, thou wilt confer great rewards on me. And, not to detain thee longer, death for Christ is more precious to me than the honor of the whole world or the possession of riches. At this Aurelian, breathing yet more vehemently against the boy, ordered his body to be beaten with cudgels. Meanwhile that tender body was torn, and the boy, hoary in mind as it were in his first flower, remained unmoved, with cheerful countenance and glad heart, as though resting in a sweet sleep.

[10] But the emperor, being crafty and full of guile, he is tortured, but the attempt is fruitless, feigning that he wished to have pity on the boy, and as though desiring to rescue him from the more atrocious torments which awaited him — in truth thus trying to induce him to sacrifice — said: Say only in a word that thou art willing to sacrifice, and thou shalt be free of these torments. Mamas answered: Not I, O emperor, even shouldst thou prepare punishments far more numerous and heavier than those I see at present, will deny with heart or mouth Christ, the only true King. But I return thee great thanks also, through whom I know that the longed-for prize draws near to me. I desire indeed that the hands of the torturers be not only not wearied (since they are to me the cause of so great goods), but that they grow more and more strong and be strengthened. Moreover Aurelian, seeing that the boy cared nothing for the stripes inflicted on him, ordered his naked body to be burned with torches, so that, his flesh being quickly pierced through by burning, he might longer be tormented with sharper pains. And without delay the torches are applied to the body of the Saint; but the fire, reverencing the athlete of Christ, raged vehemently rather against the soldiers.

[11] The flame, therefore, licked the martyr's body outwardly without pain, and is delivered from death by divine power. but inwardly burned the soul of the tyrant with great torment. For the less it drew near to the martyr, the more did the flame of greater madness press upon the persecutor. Then he orders the martyr to be beaten with stones; which he, in hope of things to come, received as roses' blossoms. The tyrant therefore, perceiving that by no kind of torments could he bend the mind of Mamas, ordered a leaden weight to be bound to his neck and himself to be plunged into the deep in the midst of the sea. But not even here, O Mamas, did thy God forget thee: He gave His angels charge over thee, to keep thee. For immediately an angel of the Lord, appearing in human form, struck so great a terror into the soldiers that he turned them all to flight. But snatching the martyr out of their hands, he bade him pass over to a certain mountain near Cæsarea, and there abide.

ANNOTATIONS.

read concutiebat.*

The manuscript has Eges.*

CHAPTER II.

He works marvels among the beasts; his captivity, the fires overcome, the wild beasts made gentle, his martyrdom.

Withdrawing to the mountain, he fasts forty days and receives the New Testament: When he had come thither, remaining forty continuous days without food or drink ^a, being made in a manner another Moses, the New Testament, as it had long since been by the Apostles through

the world preached, he received. And, to speak boldly, what was less granted to Moses was conceded to this martyr. For Moses received from heaven only the tables of the Old Testament; but to this man a rod, and with the rod a voice came, saying: Take the rod, Mamas, and strike the earth with the rod. Which being done without delay, the earth, gaping open, brought forth from its hidden places the Gospel of Christ. O wondrous grace of the Redeemer toward the boy! While still a little boy, beyond the course of nature, he is compared not only to Moses but to the Apostle Paul. The one clove the sea with a rod, the other the earth. And that nothing of apostolic grace should be wanting to him, he received the Gospel not from man, nor through man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Then he built himself an oratory with his own hands; and thereafter, striving to live by the labor of his hands and taught by wisdom (after the example of the valiant woman who eats not her bread in idleness), he milked the wild animals, whose use is lawful, being led to him by divine power, and made cheeses; and not ignorant that it is more blessed to give than to receive, he kept a few for his own use and, going down to Cæsarea, distributed the rest to the poor.

[12] dwelling there among the beasts he works other Meanwhile a certain Alexander — not that one of whom we made mention above — being appointed duke of Cappadocia, a man willing to be inferior to none in cruelty, nay striving to surpass all in impiety, not enduring the greatness of the wisdom and religion of Mamas, which he had learned by the spreading of report, having diligently inquired of everything concerning him, sends his soldiers to seek him out, that they might bring him to him. Which was by no means hidden from the Saint, but he went the more swiftly to meet them. And the soldiers, meeting him, and being wholly ignorant who he was, inquired of him the place where Mamas abode. To whom he said: It is fitting that ye first rest a little and dismount from your horses and recline for supper; and after this I will show you the Mamas whom ye seek. This being granted, he prepares the supper with much care, pours water upon their hands, and as a bountiful host sets bread and cheese before them in sufficiency. When they had been delightfully refreshed with such things, behold, the wild beasts come together to Mamas in their wonted manner, and offer themselves to him for milking so gently and so fitly as though they had long been nourished by him and trained for this. Seeing which, the soldiers, seized with great fear and amazement, leaving the supper, take refuge with the martyr; and they fear lest they die at the hands of him whom they had come to seize that they might kill him. Whom he gently consoled, and exhorted that they should not fear, but rather take comfort and bear themselves manfully.

[13] Then, wishing to free them from the care with which they were tormented in seeking him, he works marvelous things, he said: I am Mamas, whom ye seek, and vex yourselves no longer in seeking; but go before, and I will follow you close at hand. And they, believing him most firmly and suspecting in him no light deceit, returned by the way by which they had come. But the holy martyr, calling by a nod one of the lions which abode with him on the mountain, said: Come with me; and while I enter upon my contest, do thou with swiftest course seize and cruelly tear the children of the Gentiles and the Jews, as many as with malignant and blasphemous tongue shall curse and revile the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Giving these commands to the beast, he departed from the mountain; and overtaking the soldiers who were waiting beside the gate of the city, he enters with them to Alexander. And Alexander, looking upon him, said: Art thou Mamas, who art infamous for the magic art? To whom Mamas with great modesty said: I am Mamas the servant of Christ, who indeed saves those that hope in Him and do His will; but magicians and enchanters, sacrilegious men and idolaters, He condemns to unquenchable fire.

[14] having them obedient and familiar to him. But now explain why thou hast summoned me. — Because, said the duke, I will have no part in such sorceries as thou usest, whereby thou so drawest to thyself the unconquerable and untamable cruelty of the beasts that thou consortest with them as with men, and they obey thy commands more than any rational man. To whom the martyr, answering, said: He who serves my God not only does not consort with idolaters and enchanters, but does not share with them even a brief dwelling together. Wherefore I have chosen to consort rather with the wild beasts than with you. These indeed are not enchanted by our sorceries, as thou suspectest, so as to serve me like household creatures: for I know not what the name of sorcery or enchantment means, nor have I ever learned any such thing; but although they are beasts incapable of rational sense, yet they know how to reverence my God, and to show honor to those who serve Him. But you are in all things far more irrational than they, who have them for an example in this, that they render honor to the common Lord of all — and not even so do you acknowledge your Creator.

[15] The duke, therefore, since he had nothing to say against this, He is upbraided by Alexander, and amid torments is strengthened from heaven: began openly to revile the holy martyr. How, he said, hast thou broken out into such folly and boldness, that thou neither fearest to go against the imperial commands nor art afraid to do us injury? But torments shall teach thee what thou oughtest to do. And straightway he ordered him to be hung up and torn. But hung up and torn, amid so many punishments he acted in nothing softly; he said nothing weak, nothing ignoble; but bearing himself manfully in all things, he looked upon the torturers with cheerful countenance, as though he seemed to feel no pain at all. For, wholly intent upon heaven, he awaited paradise with gladness. When therefore the duke was holding out sharper pains and urging more insistently that the martyr's body be more vehemently torn, a certain divine voice, gliding down from heaven, so strengthened the holy martyr that he did not feel the excess of the pains at all, and from thenceforth stood forth victor over all torments. Which voice many of the faithful hearing, they were greatly confirmed in the faith of Christ. Alexander, seeing that the most noble boy set those most savage claws at naught, turning to madness, ordered him indeed to be taken down from the rack, but commanded a furnace of fire to be kindled for the burning of Christ's athlete.

[16] Meanwhile, being detained by other business, he judged it very opportune and convenient to his malice that the martyr of Christ should be thrust for a time into prison: for, deceived by a false hope, he reckoned that if a short time of rest were granted him, shut up in prison he frees the captives: new marvels of the tyrant. the martyr, becoming perchance more careful for himself, both by the experience of past pains and by the fear of the furnace kindled for him in the future, would come more softened to the second interrogation and would lay aside no small part of his former rigor. The noble boy therefore is shut up in prison, where, finding forty Christians bound with chains, he loosed them from their bonds, removed by prayer the bars of the prison and all its bolts, and opened the doors. Them indeed he bids go forth; but he himself, strengthened by an angelic presence for the contests to come, remained alone in the prison. Meanwhile the duke, setting aside the business of other causes, the furnace being vehemently kindled, addresses the martyr standing before his tribunal thus: Attending to the affairs, many and great, which press upon us, we have indulged thee a little rest, that, taking counsel for thyself, thou mayest provide for thine own advantage: and if thou wilt, thou thyself seest to what a height the kindled furnace lifts its flames. Nor will I from henceforth assail thee with words, until that irrational hardness of thine be broken, after deep sighs, unto a repentance though late.

[17] Cast into the furnace he sings the divine praises. To this the martyr answered most constantly: Long since, O duke, I plainly set forth to thee my will; and why dost thou again turn about in the same thing? Begin, make an end, and delay no longer in threats. Which being said, he is straightway cast into the furnace. But God, who once in Assyria granted to the three children in the furnace not to feel the fires, drenching them with heavenly dew, He too was not wanting to this His child: for the martyr of Christ, as in a flowering garden, drenched with heavenly dew, walking about in the midst of the flame, did not so much as smell the fire; nay, for three whole days, while the furnace held him, he ceased not to sing hymns and to give thanks to God. But after three days, when the flame failed and the coals were dissolved into ashes, the executioner, not knowing how to spare even the dead, orders whatever remained of the martyr's bones to be drawn out of the furnace and presented to him. The torturers, sent to the furnace, straightway hear the holy martyr within, with clear voice, glorifying the mighty works of God; whence, astonished and vehemently terrified, hastily returning, they report to the exactor of the ashes what they had heard and seen to have happened beyond nature. But he said: By the great Serapis and all the other gods, it is manifest enchantment. Speaking these and many other things against the truth, he raged and detracted from the martyr. For so far had the anger and indignation of God blinded his heart that what was clearer than light to all the rest, this man, blind in mind, groping at midday as though in darkness, could in no way either see or perceive. But of the crowd which had come together to the spectacle, as many as could breathe even a little toward the truth, finding in the athlete of Christ neither trace of fire nor any sign of burning, glorified Jesus Christ, ascribing the miracle to Him alone.

[18] [He triumphs over the beasts, which render him wonderful obeisance; but a lion tears the heathen.] Meanwhile Alexander, seeing the holy martyr standing again before his tribunal so sound and unharmed that not the least scorching could be discerned in his hair or his locks, once more assails him with revilings and mockeries and other blasphemies, crying out with insane clamor that he was a magician and an enchanter and possessed by a demon. To whom the martyr did not deign even to answer. Meanwhile he ordered him to be led to the place where the people were wont to come for the spectacle, thinking to make him food for the wild beasts. And thither the martyr, smiling, follows gladly. And so a leopard and a bear, which had already slain many, are let loose to tear the martyr. The bear indeed, with great modesty bowing its head, prostrate at the feet of Mamas the martyr, seemed diligently to kiss his footsteps; but the leopard, like some household animal, rearing itself upon its feet, gently wiped away by licking his whole body the sweat which the Saint had shed through his toil, and as though grievously sorrowing over the injuries which he had borne, consoled him in what ways it was given it to do. And the wild beasts indeed, which the impious man had sent forth to devour the martyr, offered such things to our crowned one. But not so that lion which had received command from him, and which (as above) he had armed against the impious: for gnashing its teeth and breathing fury, coming swiftly down from the mountain, scattering with terror the crowd which had gathered for the spectacle, it tore some with its teeth and others with its claws. Whence no small multitude of the unbelievers, perceiving the divine power about the martyr, magnified his God.

[19] But these things, which might have softened even hearts of stone, [The martyr, pierced with a trident, is called to glory and consummates his course in a wondrous manner.] rendered the tyrant only more cruel: for, having a hardened heart, he ordered a lion again to be let loose to devour the martyr. But as much as the aforesaid lion had raged more fiercely against the impious, so much the more modestly did this one, gentle toward the martyr,

approach him: so that it seemed to have been brought rather for consolation than for punishment. The mad Alexander, therefore, utterly despairing that he could now by any kind of torments overcome Mamas, called to him one of the bystanders, a most powerful man and most ready for impiety, and made him drive with both hands into the martyr's bowels an iron trident which he chanced to be holding in his hand ^b. Seeing which, a certain religious woman, most devoted to the veneration of the martyr, ran to the martyr, and, catching in a bowl the drops of blood flowing down from his bowels, laid them up for herself with honor. Moreover the glorious martyr of Christ, holding his flowing bowels with his own hands, with great confidence — which the long-awaited but now near end afforded him — passing through the theater, gracious and adorned by his own burden, bearing the reproach of Christ, goes forth from the city. For most joyfully bearing in his hands the inward fashioning of his own nature, he offered himself a sacrifice to his Fashioner outside the camp. At length, turning aside about two stadia into a certain cave, behold, a crown is seen prepared for him in heaven, and a voice was sent down to him from heaven, saying: Ascend, Mamas, athlete of Christ, ascend to heaven, where Christ awaits to crown thee, because thou strivest lawfully. And presently that holy soul, loosed from the bonds of the body, was taken up into the eternal tabernacles, to those ineffable delights and to the brightness of the citizens above, among the choirs of angels, to praise with them without end the Christ whom he had devoutly served. And he ascended on the second day (that is, the fourth of the Nones) of September; with whom may we too be able to ascend, by the co-working grace of our Redeemer; with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, honor, and dominion, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen ^c.

ANNOTATIONS.

CONCERNING THE RELICS

Translated into Gaul, to Langres.

Preliminary observations.

Mamas, M., at Cæsarea in Cappadocia (St.)

BY J. P.

Who is their author; The writer of these translations is a certain anonymous priest: for in the preface of the same he records thus of himself: But I, the least of priests, &c. In the edition of the said translations which is extant in Surius on the XVII day of August, the title of Canon of Langres is given him; which is also noted in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis, brought to light by John a Bosco, page 239, after the text of the praised anonymous author; but how truly, at what time, or on what authority it was there ascribed to him, I am wholly ignorant. But that that author was, if not a canon, at least a priest of Langres, is drawn from marks inserted here and there in his history, at numbers 12 and 13 in our text. For concerning Godfrey, bishop of Langres, he says: Many still survive OF YOU who saw him. And presently he subjoins: But what pertains to the glory of OUR martyr, I will not pass over in silence. Then he has this concerning the blood which prodigiously flowed from his arm: All who were present, astonished at so great a miracle, most devoutly placed the blood they had received in an alabaster vessel, which is still in OUR keeping. Finally, as he adds, of this deed the blood itself is witness, which is shown among US … even to this present day. He had said in chapter 2 concerning William, bishop of Langres, who is now our bishop-elect.

[2] That this Anonymous wrote about the year of Christ 1214 when Peter Francis Chifflet has left noted, as we premised above in the preliminary Commentary, §2, number 18. In Surius the year 1205 is appended to his narrative. But since the Anonymous himself has circumscribed this subject with various chronological marks in his history, it is well to set them forth and to weigh them. In it, then, at number 12 cited before, he speaks of Louis, then king, the father of this illustrious Philip who now, he says, reigns in France. He wrote therefore in the time of Philip II, or Augustus, king of the Franks, who succeeded his father Louis upon his death in the year 1180, after he had been crowned by him in 1179; and he held the kingdom until the year 1223. But the praised Anonymous determines his time more closely when below, in our chapter 2, he mentions the venerable William and adds, who is now our bishop-elect, as we have just said. He flourished, therefore, at the beginning of this bishop of Langres.

[3] In the new edition of the Gallia Christiana, vol. 4, he is treated of from column 596 in these words: he wrote. William of Joinville, or, as is read in various instruments, of Jovis-villa, of Junci-villa, &c., from the town on the river Marne which passed to the princes of Lorraine and in their favor was distinguished with the name of a principality, sprung of a most noble stock of Champagne, &c. But although it is commonly said, with the Chronicle of Langres, that he took up the crozier in 1209 according to the old manner of beginning the year, and in 1210 according to the present. Then his deeds are attached to various years, as may there be seen, down to the year 1218. Our Anonymous, therefore, plied his labor, or, if you will, set the last hand to his history, not in the year 1205, as is found in Surius, but either about the year 1214, as pleased Chifflet, or about the year 1209; for this latter rather than the former seems to be indicated by that writer, not only because he calls the praised William elect, whereby he seems to denote the very beginning of his episcopate, but also because at the end of his narrative he expressly says: In the year of the Incarnation one thousand two hundred and nine these things were done; which, for the reason given, do not seem to have been written long after. Not out of place, we now subjoin certain things to be observed concerning the sacred pledges themselves translated to Langres.

[4] In the first place, the certainty of them is not all the same: for the Anonymous himself doubts concerning the bone of the shin or of the thigh, Not the same is the authority of all these relics; when toward the end of his history he reports this: Thirdly there was sent to the people of Langres a long bone, which seems to be of the shin or of the thigh: concerning which, how it came to us, I have passed over in silence, because it is not very authentic, although it was brought under the testimony of many noble and good men. The part of the neck-bone, which is said to have been sent first to the people of Langres, is not proved with sufficient certainty, both because it rests upon a tradition of whose truth there is no assurance on account of certain marvels which are mixed into the deed — the Anonymous premising to the narrative of it: Which they SAY was done in this manner, as it stands in our text below, chapter 1 — and because the name is not expressed of him who brought those relics into Gaul, nor of the bishop of Langres who received them, nor the time at which the thing befell. Let the substance of the deed, however, avail as far as it can. See what was said above in the Commentary, §3, number 31.

[5] The Anonymous, when he had narrated at number 5 that that sacred pledge could by no means be moved from a place near the city of Langres, the false narrative of a certain writer so as to be carried into it, brings in a certain elder who said this to the bishop: Father, it is plain from evident signs that this Saint is of the greatest merit before God: one thing remains, that we promise … namely that the church of Langres be entitled with the name of this Saint. And fear not, for St. John the Evangelist will not be indignant, &c. Denis Gaultherot, in his Langres pagan and Christian, published in French in the year 1649, page 370, asserts that the cathedral church of Langres was dedicated by Garnier II on the XX day of July in the year 1196 under the invocation of St. Mammes, in the presence, as he adds, of several abbots, of the Duke of Burgundy, &c. And he will have it that this was done by him to carry into execution the vow which bishop Rainald had made when he received the neck-bone of this martyr, brought by a certain nobleman who had obtained it from Isaac Comnenus in the year 1059, and had promised that he would see to it that he should be named patron of the cathedral church. Then Gaultherot cites a certain register, as he calls it, &c. But here is a farrago of falsehoods.

[6] For 1) that the church of Langres bore the name of St. Mammes already from at least the eighth century is plainly clear from our preliminary Commentary, §4, above. 2) If Garnier performed that dedication in the year 1196, is refuted and that in fulfilment of Rainald's vow already set forth, how could our Anonymous at the number 5 cited say of the bishop under whom he reported that promise to have been made, as we saw a little before, whose name the Lord knows, when he was perfectly familiar with the name of Rainald, as is clear from chapter 2, in which it is narrated that that bishop of Langres obtained the arm of St. Mamas (and not the neck-bone) at Constantinople from the emperor — of what name I know not, because in what year he set out thither is not established. For although it is established that he went to Constantinople and the Eastern regions for devotion's sake, as is reported in the Gallia Christiana cited, column 562, yet in what year this befell is unknown; the Chronicle of Langres says 1076. And if this be true, he received that sacred pledge from Michael Ducas, who reigned from the year 1071 to 1078. But the translation of that arm seems plainly authentic, and especially that of the head, concerning which some things also must be noted.

[7] What is recorded concerning the Saint's head is sufficiently authentic. To be brief, let it suffice to have indicated and, as it were, pointed out with the finger a few marks which witness to the authentic truth of that head, the reader being sent to the history of the Anonymous, in which more things bearing on this are found in our chapter 3. Let there be observed, then, what stands there concerning the finding and the inscription of that sacred relic; likewise concerning the delivery of this treasure; then concerning the apparition of the holy martyr. Moreover we have divided the narrative of the Anonymous, after our manner, into new chapters, and have purged it of errors, the substance of the matters being always left untouched; to which we shall also add our annotations.

THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATIONS

Composed by a certain anonymous priest of Langres,

And published in print in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis of John a Bosco, page 226 and following, of the right-hand gallery.

Mamas, M., at Cæsarea in Cappadocia (St.)

BHL Number: 5199

By the Anonymous.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Chapter I.

Since the frailty of the human condition does not permit the memory of things past to live long, The author excuses his slenderness by obedience, the use of letters has been given by the Lord as a remedy, by which both things past may live and deeds may be faithfully presented to the eyes of those who come after as if present. For the examples of the ancients are those coals of desolation by which both the rust of vices is consumed in the minds of the hearers, and faithful devotion is more fervently kindled to do or to suffer the like, if need be. For who has a heart so stony that it does not somewhat

be softened, when there come into his mind the faith of the Patriarchs, the boldness of the Prophets, the wondrous power of Peter and the Apostles, the constancy of the Martyrs, the patience of the Confessors, the tender fortitude of the Virgins; as the Apostle says: Whatsoever things were written, were written for our learning, that through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope. But I, the least of priests, who am not worthy to be called a priest, because I have offended often and in many things and have walked more frequently outside the path of the law, had purposed to lay open to your charity how the head of blessed Mamas the martyr was brought to Langres ^c; but I fear lest it be imputed to me for presumption if I undertake a work which I doubt not is beyond me. Yet the Lord knows that I have been constrained to this as it were by the command of a superior. Whence also I trust in the Lord that the strength which unskilfulness denies, the virtue of obedience and charity will supply.

[2] But I ask pardon if I begin somewhat higher up. and he sets down first a miracle of the Saint. For certain things have been omitted in the Legend of the blessed martyr, perhaps through the negligence of my predecessors, which will both redound to the martyr's glory and, when known, profit the hearers. For when that noble woman named Amia, at the angel's suggestion, had taken up the little infant from the prison, where both his parents had died in chains for the faith of Christ, and when she caused him to be carried to the church that he might receive the sacrament of baptism, in the presence of many, the priest who had come to regenerate him asked publicly: "By what name shall this boy be called?" The boy, who did not yet know the use of his tongue, answered: Mamas is my name. And when all were amazed, and the priest asked this same thing again a second and a third time, the boy said with clear voice: Mamas is my name. Understanding therefore that it was done by the Lord, and that it was marvelous in the eyes of all, they did not presume to change the name, but gave thanks in common to the Lord, because neither before nor since, in all that region, has any one been found who was called by this name ^d. From the miracle let us return to our purpose: but that what follows may more easily be made clear, it must first be told briefly how the knowledge of this blessed martyr came, by the Lord's providence, into Burgundy.

ANNOTATIONS.

THE DIVISION OF CHAPTERS IN THE EDITION PREVIOUSLY PRINTED.

CHAPTER I.

The wondrous translation of a bone of St. Mamas to the church of Langres.

II.

For faithful antiquity relates that the church of Langres, the church of Langres distinguished with the name of the holy martyr from its beginning, was founded in honor of blessed John the Evangelist: but the Lord, who saw His Apostle so exalted through the grace of Gospel preaching that his sound had gone forth into all the earth and his words had been known unto the ends of the world, did not indeed derogate from the Apostle, but willed so to reveal the glory of His martyr that he should be known not only in Greece, but should even be held most celebrated in Burgundy. Which they say was done in this manner. A certain nobleman from the parts of Gaul, whose name the envy of age has taken away from our midst, returning from the regions of Jerusalem, came to Constantinople. Where, while he tarried, he heard of the blessed martyr, how his name resounded very frequently in the mouth of the whole people, and how he was venerated by all above the other martyrs; so that he was even called by antonomasia ΜΕΓΑ martyr ^a, that is, the great martyr.* Since indeed in the whole catalogue of the Saints there is not found any one who, at so tender an age, endured for the name of Christ so many and so great kinds of torments.

[4] by the translation of a bone of his That man therefore began anxiously to turn over in his mind whether he might in some way have something of this martyr's relics, which he might carry with him as it were for a viaticum on the way, a safeguard against all dangers. Nor was he cheated of his desire, for by God's grace he merited to obtain a part of that bone of his which is commonly called the oschia colli* ^b, which is wont to join the head to the shoulders. Which treasure, prizing it above gold and topaz, he laid up carefully in a silken pouch and hung it about his neck out of reverence; and thus, exulting and rejoicing, he took the road homeward. And at length, after many spaces of land, the Alps also having been crossed, he came to the borders of Langres. And when he was already near the city, in the place which is called Great Meadow, he had need to go to the requirements of nature, and, withdrawing a little from his company, as he had always been accustomed, he lifted from his neck the relics hanging there, lest injury be done to the sacred pledges if he should have them with him in a place of foulness; and he hung them on the little branch of a certain tree; and straightway, when he wished to take up again what he had laid down, being about to go on his way, he was by no means able to recover it. What should he do? Whither should he turn? Sighing and groaning, he called back his companions who were going away; and they, returning, strove with all their might to break the silken thread with their hands or with iron, but they labored in vain. For no yokes of oxen applied could have torn it away. Since mortal weakness can do nothing against the power and might of God.

[5] very wonderful Amazed therefore and grieving, they went up into the city, and to the bishop of the place, whose name God knows, they related in order the sequence of what had happened. But the bishop, exulting in the Lord and giving thanks, having called together the elders and the whole people of the city, carefully set forth what he had heard; and a fast being proclaimed, with tapers, crosses, and censers, accompanied by the clergy and by an innumerable multitude of both sexes, he set out for the place, humbly chanting the Psalms of David. And seeing the relics, he commanded all with one accord to prostrate themselves with him upon bended knees in prayer, that the Lord — as He did not permit the ark of the covenant to remain in the temple of Dagon, but caused it to be brought back from the land of the Philistines into the land of Israel, and as He took the cross of His Son from the shrine of Chosroes and brought it back to Jerusalem by the hand of His servant Heraclius ^c — would so cause these holy things to be carried into the city. And rising at once from prayer, he wished to take up the little vessel in which they were; but neither he nor all the others who were present, clerics together with laymen, trying both together and one after another, in case one might be stronger than another, were able in any way to break or tear away the slender thread by which it hung. Whence, marveling and beating their breasts, they prostrate themselves again humbly to the help of prayer, vowing vows to the Lord that they would honorably adorn this wondrous treasure of the Saint with gold and precious stones, and that they would most devoutly celebrate his birthday every year, and that they would solemnly precede the day of his birth with vigils and prayers. But not even so could they in any wise obtain it. What should they do? All wept and besought the mercy of God.

[6] And when they had thus drawn out almost the whole day into evening, which by many confounded and despairing of obtaining their request, they were preparing to withdraw. For although it is difficult that the prayers of many should not obtain, yet they did not judge themselves worthy to be heard, nor did they on that account murmur against the Lord, but rather imputed the whole to themselves and to their own crimes. At length the Lord, who, although He sometimes seems to delay for those who desire, yet never forgets to show mercy, stirred up the spirit of a certain elder who, pleasant in aspect and venerable with his gracious white hair, leapt forth into the midst, saying to the bishop: Father, it is plain from evident signs that this Saint is of the greatest merit before God: one thing remains, that we promise (and our petition shall enjoy its due effect) — namely, that the church of Langres be entitled with the name of this Saint. And fear not, for St. John the Evangelist will not be indignant if his son, whom he begot to the Lord by the word of his preaching, be honored in his stead.

[7] All being alike comforted by this voice as though sent from heaven, is here recounted by the author. they prostrate themselves again to pray with tears. The bishop also, prostrate before the relics, devoutly offered the title of his church ^d to the holy martyr; and straightway, the prayer being scarcely finished, the relics fell of their own accord into his hands. How great was then the exultation of clergy and people, how great the voices of jubilation that sounded to heaven from both sexes, it is not mine to unfold, even though I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels. Let it suffice to have said only this, that returning with hymns and confessions they blessed the Lord, who had done such great marvels before them. O how precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints! This little boy, who chose to be cast out among the wild beasts on the mountain of the Lord rather than to take his delight in the tents of sinners; who hid alone in secret places lest by even a light breath he should stain his life among the impious; taken at last by the ministers of crimes, while afflicted with mockeries and stripes he put off the flesh, as was thought, in pitiable fashion — now commands princes, and holds the necks of dukes and magnates subject to his power. What purple of kings, then, what nobility of blood, what abundance of gold or silver could have exalted him to such glory?

[8] But this is the reward of the Lord which He bestows upon His beloved after the sleep of death. For if He willed that so great reverence be shown on earth to the bones of His martyrs, which feel nothing and understand nothing, what will He bestow upon their souls, which exult in heaven with the angels, and, clothed in white robes, follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth? What also will He bestow upon them in the day of judgment, when, their bodies being taken up again, they shall rejoice in both robes, shall see God face to face, shall know as also they are known, shall love Him whom they know, shall praise Him whom they love, so that in that very praise and love they may delight without weariness? These are the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c. David, understanding these things in spirit, cried out and said: For what have I in heaven? As if he should say: How glorious, how beyond all price! And besides Thee what have I desired upon earth? As if to say: How vile and contemptible, of no price and of no moment! He who so believes, he who so hopes, is not anxious about life, but awaits secure the moment of death ^e.

ANNOTATIONS.

the top of the hinder part of the neck, and which was called by the Latins fossa. He takes the etymology of the word from nucula, that is, a little nut, following Ménage; there are some, however, who would have this word derived from the Arabic nacha, as may there be seen. But what of the word oschia? Since the Anonymous adds is commonly called oschia colli, I suspect that he had in view the French word osche, which signifies a notch or incision (of which word the Trévoux Dictionary just cited treats in vol. 3, and Ménage's Etymological Dictionary, reprinted at Paris in 1694, page 539); so that in his vernacular tongue he seems to have wished to signify by the word oschia one of the seven vertebræ of the neck, which, being in a manner notched, is wont to join the head to the shoulders, as he himself expresses it.

perhaps haberetur.*

perhaps quod.*

CHAPTER II.

The arm of St. Mamas obtained for the church of Langres; the blood flowing from it.

III.

As time went on, there was taken up to the government of the city of Langres bishop Reinald ^a of pious memory, Rainald, bishop of Langres who sat tenth before the venerable William, who is now our bishop-elect ^b. That man was indeed distinguished in birth, but the nobility of his birth was made illustrious by the uprightness of his manners and by his manifold knowledge of letters. For he was not only learned in the liberal studies, but sufficiently instructed in the pages of both Testaments. For his very works bear witness to the truth. For when he himself held the county of Tonnerre ^c and the county of Bar-sur-Seine ^d on behalf of his nephews, who were still little children, on account of certain discords ^e, as it is said, the king of the Franks ^f who was then reigning held him in the city of Noyon ^g in a tower beside the gate; where, not broken by adversity but rejoicing, because he understood that God scourges the son whom He loves, he made a hymn and chanted it with modulated voices together with the boys on Palm Sunday, namely: Gloria, laus. This same man translated the Life of the blessed martyr from Greek into Latin ^h, which afterwards also he is said to have set forth in heroic verse. Concerning the same he composed Antiphons and Responsories with wonderful modulation. In the composing of which, how great an ardor of devotion he had, the very sweetness of the modulation plainly declares. And when he saw that the life and merits of his patron were utterly unknown in these parts, not suffering to bear this with an idle mind, he began anxiously to turn it over with himself and to entreat the Lord with tears and groans to direct his way and his acts.

[10] And at length, having found an occasion of adoring Him in the place where His feet had stood, At Constantinople he obtains from the emperor the martyr's arm, the Holy Spirit consenting, he devoutly took up the journey of pilgrimage; and, to pass on more briefly, coming to Constantinople, he found the desire of his soul: for, instructed by faithful and various interpreters, he carefully set forth now word for word, now sense for sense. Meanwhile, since he had with him many soldiers in arms and well-equipped servants, being found strenuous and faithful in the affairs of the empire, he was greatly loved by the emperor ⁱ and by his satraps. Whence also, when the emperor wished to honor him with gifts, above all riches he asked for the arm of the blessed martyr, which was kept with honor in the emperor's chapel. Which at length, at the instance and intervention of all the courtiers who loved him, he was scarcely able to obtain. Praising the Lord therefore, who had made his journey prosperous, he returned in haste to his church: where, with what exultation he was received by the greater and the lesser of the whole province, since I should not be sufficient to tell it, I have rather resolved to be silent.

[11] For the first and greatest joy for all was over the incomparable treasure sent to them as it were from heaven. and brings it to Langres, and is praised for his virtues there. But the second, and not the least, was over the shepherd restored to them, whom divine grace made so lovable to all that every one of his people loved him affectionately as his own father. For he was gentle in aspect, humble in bearing, kindly in speech, merciful to the needy, compassionate to the afflicted, a consoler of the sorrowful, exhorting the slothful, resisting the proud. Neither did learning make him swollen, nor high birth lifted up. Let the nobles of our time blush, who, though they are empty of themselves, glory in another's blood; who desire to be made masters before they have been disciples, slow to hear, swift to speak, ready for insults, sluggish to study, prone to anger. Let those, then, who are such blush and be confounded in themselves; let them be bent to the humility of study, be formed to good manners, obey their elders; lest, being suddenly overtaken when the time shall come, they be repelled from honors as unworthy; but rather, as truly humble and as well deserving, may merit to be raised up.

IV.

[12] The fifth after him who sat at Langres was bishop Godfrey ^k of good memory, In the time of Godfrey, bishop of Langres of whose commendation I say nothing ^l, because many of you still survive who saw him and knew more fully his manners and his religion and his life. But what pertains to the glory of our martyr I will not pass over in silence. When the city of Edessa* ^m, which is commonly called Rhoaïs ⁿ, had been taken by the heathen, that same bishop, together with Louis, then king, the father of this illustrious Philip ^o who now reigns in France, took up the purpose of crossing the sea. And that he might have sufficient means for accomplishing this, he took from the church of Langres many vessels of gold and silver, under a sure promise of restitution. Among the rest, while he was causing the gold and precious stones with which the arm of blessed Mamas was adorned to be removed, it happened, by the Lord's providing, that the goldsmith's instrument slightly wounded the bare bone of the arm; and straightway a most abundant blood began to flow, and all who were present, astonished at so great a miracle, most devoutly placed the blood they had received in an alabaster vessel, which is still in our keeping, trembling and asking pardon lest perchance they had offended the holy martyr in this.

[13] the said arm flows with blood. To these things the author adds a digression. Of this deed the blood itself is witness, which is shown among us as though almost fresh even to this present day. Why God did this — whether to enlarge the martyr's glory, or because it displeased Him that the holy relics seemed thus to be dishonored — I have not wished to discuss by dreaming. For it is better in such things to doubt piously than to define rashly. I had indeed resolved to pass over in silence, but could not, a certain marvel which befell in that city of Edessa when it was taken by the heathen. There were in it nuns living under a rule, devout virgins consecrated to the Lord, who, when they had heard that the city was taken, greatly feared lest they should lose their purpose of virginity, lest they should be defiled by the lust of the impious. Taking therefore a bold counsel among themselves, each plucking out one of her own eyes, they also manfully cut off their noses together with the upper lip, so that, thus mutilated, they might be judged rather abominable than to be desired for lust. Let our virgins hear, and let them not desire to be seen by men, but let them hide their faces because of the angels of the Lord. Let them understand the mystery of their veil: that the Lord has set a sign upon their faces, that they may admit no lover but Him.

ANNOTATIONS.

read Edessa.*

CHAPTER III.

The finding of the head of St. Mamas; its genuineness confirmed by a vision; the translation to Langres; miracles.

If I have wandered too far, pardon me, I pray; bear a little with my foolishness: The head of St. Mamas is found at Constantinople, for I come in haste to the matter for which I began. When Constantinople had been taken ^a, the Latin victors were exulting in the booty they had seized, like men who have found much spoil. But blind cupidity, which easily persuades, so held their victorious hands captive that they not only violated the churches, but even shamelessly broke open the little vessels in which the relics of the Saints rested. Basely tearing out from them the gold and silver and gems, they reckoned the relics themselves as nothing. Hearing which, the elders of the army grieved greatly, fearing lest such a victory should turn to their destruction. Counsel therefore being taken, the Legate ^b, who bore the place of the Apostolic See, together with the archbishops and bishops, under threat of strict anathema, commanded that no one should keep relics for himself, but that all should freely resign them into the hand of Guarnerius ^c of good memory, then bishop of Troyes. Among which was found the head of the glorious martyr, bare indeed, save that a silver band was drawn about that same head, and stretched over it in the manner of a cross, and enclosed the whole; on which was written in ancient Greek letters, which still appear there: ΑΓΙΟΣ ΜΑΜΑΣ, which is interpreted Saint Mames.*

[15] where for some time it is preserved, When by God's grace this had become known to Gnalo of Domna Petra, a man of honorable life and good report, beloved of God and men, of no small account in the army of the Latins — as afterwards appeared, since he was with one accord taken as bishop of Damascus — he, as a devoted son and a useful member ^d of the church of Langres, that he might be able to honor his mother with such pledges, began to labor in every way to have those relics; but, while the said bishop lived, he could by no means obtain them: because that same bishop, as is said, aspired to this, that returning in his own person he might present that treasure to our church; for he most tenderly loved him who then sat at Langres,* bishop Hilduin ^e, to whose soul may God be merciful. When that bishop of Troyes had entered the way of all flesh, hoping that what he desired might more easily be brought into effect, he came to the venerable father master Peter of Capua, cardinal priest of the title of St. Mark ^f, who in those parts at that time discharged the office of legate; at whose knees he fell, entreating with tears, and humbly set forth the desire of his soul.

[16] but afterwards it was obtained there by Gnalo. At this word the Legate exulted in the Lord, because the opportunity had come whereby he could grant the petition of the said Gnalo, whom for his honorable character he tenderly loved. And straightway, brooking no delay lest what he sought should be carried off, he went to the lodging of the deceased bishop, and, finding the head reverently hidden, brought it back to his own house with due honor; and that he might cut away every scruple of doubt on this head, he called together many Greek clerics and monks, who, reading the letters on the silver, asserted that it was the head of the glorious martyr. For the greater certainty of which matter, the same Legate sent a certain priest and a certain clerk of his, with the said Gnalo, to the monastery which had been newly built at the cost of Isaac ^g, emperor of Constantinople, in honor of blessed Mamas. Whose abbot and monks, when they had seen the head brought forth, weeping fell upon their faces and cried out with groaning: Behold the head of our patron, which a certain calogerus ^h — that is, a good old monk — brought to Constantinople, with many other relics of the Saints, from the land in which the blessed martyr suffered ⁱ; and while he was pondering with himself where he might honorably place them, it was answered him in a dream: Lay them up in the church which the emperor Isaac is newly building to the blessed martyr, that thou needest not labor further. This the abbot and the monks said with wailing, and they begged the said Gnalo to accept for it a countless sum of money, or an exchange of some other thing; or, if he preferred, that he should have the lordship of the whole monastery for the whole time of his life, provided only he would restore to them what, their sins requiring it, they grieved to have lost. That these things are so true, the authentic document of the Legate himself, sent to us and honorably laid up with our privileges, bears witness.

VI.

[17] Meanwhile the venerable Gnalo, carefully guarding the treasure entrusted to him, The genuineness of that head is confirmed by a vision: honored the place in which it was kept not only with a lamp but also with a taper every night, entreating incessantly with sighs and groans that the most blessed martyr would more certainly disclose to him whether that which he had was truly his head or not. For the force of his love wrought this in him, that he feared he did not have what he already had. Just as blessed Mary Magdalen, seeing the Lord, still wept for Him as taken away. Whence often with tears he dared to say: Unless thou show me a sign, I will never take care to carry thee into my country. Repeating this often, when on a certain night, being occupied with other things, he had come later than usual to prayer before the relics, and did not find the taper lighted, being troubled within himself he entreated earnestly that it should not be imputed to him as a fault, since it had happened through the negligence of the servants. Not long after, he went up on his bed. The words of prayer had not yet departed from his mouth when suddenly a certain shuddering fell upon him, and he became as it were in an ecstasy, half awake, and he saw before him a most beautiful young man in shining raiment, holding in his hands the head which he had. And he said to him: Why doubtest thou, O thou of little faith? He who is unbelieving, his way shall not prosper. Look, and hold it firmly without doubt, that this very thing is my head, which was cut off from me for the name of Christ. Having said this, he vanished from his eyes. But he, exulting in the Lord and giving thanks, being assured of his desire by these and other evident proofs, departing from the Legate with manifold thanksgiving, began to make arrangements concerning his goods and revenues, which he had in greater abundance at Constantinople, that he might be able to return home with the longed-for treasure.

[18] But the Lord, who had found him faithful over a few things, A tempest is stilled by it, wishing to set him over greater, caused him meanwhile to be raised to the government of the church of Damascus; on account of which also his journey was postponed for nearly three years. Yet the purpose did not depart from his mind, but as soon as he could, taking occasion that he should visit the Lord Pope and the thresholds of the Apostles, he went aboard ship. And the wind being favorable, with sails raised he stood out to sea. And when he had now sailed many days, the sea grew heavy, and there arose such a tempest as had not been seen before; and, the ship being almost broken up, when all who were there, even the sailors, despaired, and trusted neither in their own strength nor in their art, but besought the mercy of God alone, the venerable bishop Gnalo rose up, crying with tears: O blessed Mames, where is thy power? Wilt thou suffer thine own head to be sunk in the waves, that it be no more seen by men nor in any wise honored? Arise, why sleepest thou, lord? Arise and pray to the Lord for us, that by thy merits we may be delivered from these perils. Scarcely had he finished the prayer, and straightway a welcome breeze is given, and a great calm was made, so that all marveled and praised the Lord, who had given so great glory to His martyr. And thus exulting, they gained the wished-for harbor with joy.

[19] Why do I linger on more things? Through many labors, through many perils, a fire quenched, and with many tribulations, at length the said bishop came to the castle which is called Domna Petra ^k; where, having laid down the head, when on a certain day he chanced to be absent, through the envy of the ancient enemy that same town began to be devastated by a grievous fire. Then all the people of that castle, from the least even to the greatest, no longer trusting in their own strength nor in the help of men, came with a rush to a certain priest named William, crying with one voice: Sir, why dost thou not quickly bring forth the head of the blessed martyr, which we have heard was left with thee by the lord bishop? For we believe that through it we shall be delivered from this plague, as of old the city of Catania was delivered from fire by the veil of blessed Agatha ^l. I am about to tell a marvel, but the whole region proclaims it, and the bishop himself constantly asserts, that straightway, when the head was shown, the fire forgot the force of its own power, so that you might wonderfully see the flame contending with the wind, which was altogether contrary to it; so that, beyond the hope of all, in a house of wood the fire ceased of itself, that it might plainly appear to all that the Lord had conferred such benefits upon them through His martyr.

VII.

[20] Then that same bishop came to Langres; where with what honor, with what reverence, a punishment at Langres for irreverence shown by a priest, with what gifts bishop Robert of good memory, who lately went the way of fate, received him and embraced the relics, I have thought must be passed over: because every one of you saw it and can hold it in memory. But this I do not pass over in silence, that when many from the diocese came together with much devotion to honor the head of their patron, two priests of good report were appointed to keep and to show the relics, and to gather the offerings of the faithful. But it befell on a certain day that those two were absent, and, the crowd of pilgrims pressing, a certain other priest, being invited to show the head of the glorious martyr to the pilgrims, approached shamelessly.

[21] from which afterwards, repenting, he is freed by the martyr's patronage. And as it is read in the book of Kings concerning Uzzah, whose hand withered because he had touched the ark of the Lord in an undue manner, so the priest's right hand became so withered that he could neither do any work with it, nor lift it to his mouth without violence; and thus he suffered for several days. At length, coming to himself, he recognized that he had done injury to the martyr; because on that same night he had been defiled by the wretched embraces of his concubine. And coming humbly to his confessor, he laid bare his fault nakedly and openly. Afterwards, when part of his penance had been performed, with tears and due reverence he approached the head, and caused his hand to be touched and signed with it; which straightway by God's grace was healed and restored to its due office. God knows that I do not lie: for he who saw it, bears witness

to the truth, and we know that his testimony is true.

[22] The author's epilogue. Let the diligent reader observe that four times the relics of that same martyr have been sent to us, and from that very sending let him understand how the Lord instructs us and shows what we ought to do. First was sent the oschia colli, beside which, through the arteries as intermediaries, there passes what has been conceived in the heart, that by the modulation of the tongue it may break forth into voice. Secondly the arm, by which action is understood. Thirdly a long bone, which seems to be of the shin or of the thigh: concerning which, how it came to us, I have passed over in silence, because it is not very authentic, although it was brought under the testimony of many noble and good men. Fourthly and lastly came the head. As if he should say: If in thought, in speech, and in work — which are signified by the oschia and the arm — you make straight the paths of our God, which pertains to the shin, you shall be able to come to your Head, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the year of whose Incarnation one thousand two hundred and nine these things were done ^m, by His own granting, who lives and reigns through all ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

Mamas.*

elsewhere Gualo.*

perhaps Damascenum.*

perhaps Lingonibus.*